Niall O'Sullivan – Poet

I keep getting into arguments with some other peeps on the internet about this and made the following post to clarify my views on the whole X Factor v Rage Against the Machine for Xmas no1 malarkey.

Over the past four years or so, the UK Christmas number one has been a syrupy ballad sung by the winner of a top rated TV talent show. Many people have argued that innovation, creativity and real talent are being neglected and that we should make a statement to say that we will not stand for this. All well and good. But here are my reservations.

1. By the time we get to the Xmas number one, the horse has already bolted the stable. In the same way that a pest like Knot Weed establishes its roots across a network of land before sending up its first shoot, the X Factor has already made the bulk of its money from telephone votes and advertising revenue. The album and singles charts have already been dominated by the acts that have performed on the prime time show, tabloid newspapers have shifted units by placing the hopefuls on their cover. The trickle of royalties that the Xmas number one generates is nothing compared to the real money made during the course of the show. And like the aforementioned Knot Weed that sends up another shoot from its powerful underground root network as soon as the last one is chopped down, when Joe goes down the dumper, another friendly face pops up in his place.

2. So in the light of the above metaphor, we attack the roots of the pest plant, but we find that X Factor and Simon Cowell are not the roots. They are just a bit of basal growth that the smiley flowers of the X Factor winners spring from. Like its predecessor Pop Idol, X Factor itself could also be chopped down to the ground and all we’ll get is another variant of the same growth popping up in the next year. The roots are the almost nameless, almost invisible corporations that enable this to happen.

3. There are other plants that can compete for the same resources as this one, and they are less aggressive, less invasive, more diverse. So we try to chop down any competing shoots of the big greedy plant in order to help them grow. Most of the time it doesn’t work: it needs the effort of many to keep the monster at bay. So everyone chooses to help protect one of these other plants and help it to compete against the big greedy one. The only problem is, the other plant is growing from the same network of roots as the big greedy one, it is actually another part of the same organism. Whatever sunlight it grabs is filtered back into the network of roots and still helps to sustain the big greedy plant. This is basically what happens when you buy the RATM single. The rage of their music, the integrity of their lyrics is just more colourful foliage designed to fool other organisms into helping it grow, while it nourishes the roots of corporations such as Sony that will continue to plough the money into commercial enterprises that separate the credulous from their cash.

4. So, now that the metaphor is getting a bit out of control, how do we deal with this problem? If you’re really worried about the environment and find out that MacDonalds are giving proceeds to Greenpeace, do you start buying Big Macs every day? Of course not, you know that MacDonalds cause a lot of problems for the environment, from their packaging, to land cleared for cattle, to the methane emissions and energy cost of the cattle themselves. It’s just another way of making more money from you while making you feel like you’re doing something good. The best thing to do would be to give your money directly to Greenpeace. It’s the same thing when you hear that the RATM proceeds will go towards helping the young musicians excluded by the X Factor culture. Giving the money directly to the charity will help a lot more without having the corporations make more money from your concerns.

The best way to say no to this is not to watch the program, not to make the phone vote, not to buy singles at Christmas. Give money to community music initiatives or even volunteer to help. Support your local music scene, if you see a band or artist you like, buy the CDs they bring for sale. They always make more money with this method than they do from shops or amazon ( who demand a 60% discount which usually brings no profit at all to independents.)

The charts have been in decline as an institution for the past decade, with singles selling less and less. Better to let an institution that has implicitly stated “what sells most is best” to carry on quietly dying rather than rehabilitate it by trying to get a seemingly credible artist to number one. This has happened before with Iron Maiden going straight to number one in the late eighties and early nineties after grass roots campaigns, only to fall out of the top thirty the next week as the pop acts continue to rake in the cash. This time wont be any different.