Something happened in the UK this week that made history. Every year for the past four years, the Christmas No. 1 record has been from the winner of a tv contest called the X Factor. This year things changed.
Tracey and Jon Morter started a group on Facebook asking people to buy an old record, Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine (an American rock/rap band). It's quite different from the saccharine offerings usually heard this time of year, being very political and containing the "f" word numerous times. Well, the campaign caught the public's imagination and even though the track dated back to the early 90's and was only available as an mp3 download, they bought and bought.
On the final day, some campaigners organised a mass download of 200,000 copies, clinching the number one slot and making history in 3 ways: the first ever download only number 1, the first ever number 1 resulting from an online campaign and (I believe) the first song to hit number 1 without being directly released. It was available as a back catalogue item and this did not change.
Alongside the campaign, the Morters were asking for donations to a UK charity, Shelter, which helps homeless people across the land. When they learned of this, the band pledged a sizeable share of the "windfall royalties" (from the unexpected sales) to the cause and also promised to play a free concert in the UK. So far Shelter has benefited to the tune of £87,000 and it's hoped the figure will reach £100,00 before Christmas day. It will take longer for the royalties donation, since they are generally paid in arrears, so we won't know the total figure for some time. There is also a petition asking Sony to donate, seing that the band and the artist competing for the top spot are both signed to its labels.
I got involved a couple of weeks ago, but had to wait until this week to buy the song so that it would count in the Christmas chart. It has been a really fascinating experience and brought together nearly a million people in an unexpected cause.
