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December 23rd, 2009
jexacinna
 | 10:42 pm
This is pure awesome.
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December 22nd, 2009
jexacinna
| 01:22 pm
I have to admit that I haven't paid much attention to the recent competition for the Christmas Number One slot here in the UK: I'm obviously pleased that it proved possible to briefly stymy the Cowell steamroller and I downloaded a copy of the Rage single accordingly. I didn't personally expect the campaign to be successful for the obvious reason that the advantage of a physical sales presence on the High Street at Christmas - and some of the most obtrusive product placement possible - would surely overwhelm download sales. This, incidentally, leads me to have little time for those in the Cowell camp who've taken to whinging about bad weather damaging physical sales and giving downloads an advantage; it's certainly true that less physical copies may have been sold, but that hardly amounts to a shift in the other direction: I've been out shopping in a major city twice in the run up to Christmas and HMV was packed on both occasions.
Upon learning that Rage had won, I was fairly ecstatic and some very enthusiastic lj and facebook posting followed. I'd also like to point out that I'd imbibed a fair bit of house red at a work do beforehand. I expected the general sentiment to be a (perhaps slightly less excitable) version of my own and, for the most part, it has been. There seems, however, to be a small camp, represented in the media and in a few places online, that thinks the campaign was 'cynical' and the victory somehow invalid. I'd like to briefly ponder this approach before making a point that seems obvious to me, but which I haven't yet encountered elsewhere. The most obvious rejoinder to the critics is appropriately simple: there's nothing invalid about a single being acknowledged as a best-seller, if it has actually sold better than the competition. Rage did that. What's more, they actually sold a lot better, but a large number of sales were discounted as deliberate attempts to manipulate the chart. This sounds woolly to me, but at the very least it puts paid to any sense that the result should be considered invalid. The cynicism charge, meanwhile, is paper thin and really rather cynical itself: the campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to make a point over and above the nation's preference for a particular act, but it arose from a perfectly natural and, in my opinion absolutely commendable, refusal to put up with an ongoing scenario in which the christmas market is a foregone conclusion, sown up by a formulaic reality tv show, itself built from the ground up upon a principle that involves identifying artists who fit a particular set of preconceptions; whatever its other merits and demerits, innovation and artist-directed change are simply not possible within the X Factor template, for evidence of which you need look no further than the fact that a significant proportion of its run-time is devoted to slotting contestants into different saleable generic formulas, judging their ability to satisfy these and, via the public voting, grabbing a bit of easy market research at the same time. There may have been some elements of the campaign that attempted to put together some truistic arguments for rock and roll purity over pop genericity, but its core ideal was nevertheless a refusal to accept monotony. I fail to see the cynicism here.
There are two other arguments that need to be quickly countered, both of which concern the artist and song chosen by the campaign. The first is the one I have the most time for: 'Killing in the Name' isn't a very appropriate or pleasant choice for a christmas single. I agree. A part of me wishes they'd chosen something funnier or more seasonal, but another part of me knows that, had they done so, there'd have been a smaller chance of success: Rage were chosen because they're a phenomenally easy act to 'get behind,' partly because of their musical approach, but equally because their political cachet is surprisingly untarnished. The second criticism concerns this mass support and the political aspect of the band. It's best represented by a commentator in yesterday's Times who makes the phenomenally clever observation that, when watching Rage perform at Coachella in 2007, it was very ironic seeing a field full of people all chanting 'Fuck you I won't do what you tell me', on demand. He likens it to a famous scene in The Life of Brian and seems to think the analogy one-shots both Rage's political credibility and the moral validity of the campaign to oppose monotony. That this is an utterly banal point is indicated by a simple counter analogy: one assumes that a political revolution in which only one person refused to accept the current governance would be about as effective as a campaign to oppose another year of predictable musical tripe by asking everyone to go out and buy a completely different single. Golf clap.
Myself, I think any argument about the validity or 'correctness' of this campaign is easily answered by a simple appeal to the response recieved by the campaign itself. The opposition to another year of X Factor slosh has achieved a physical victory, but I actually feel that there's is rather obviously a moral or ethical or perhaps simply spiritual victory too: the point, as I've emphasised, was to counter monotony and predictability and that's exactly what has occured for, as it happens, many those who prefer and have perhaps purchased the X Factor offering have actually admitted that it's been nice to have an element of competition. By dint of opposing what was otherwise a one-horse race, the campaign has restored the excitement and entertainment that, half a decade ago, used to accompany the run up to the Christmas number one. That's surely a good thing, and true whoever you prefer musically.
Current Music: Pelican - Strung Up From the Sky | Powered by Last.fm
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December 21st, 2009
jexacinna
| 02:15 pm
Ahem. We'll chalk my last up to an enthusiastic reaction to the news that, for one year at least, Simon Cowell's mawkish tripe hasn't ridden to chart success on a wave of consumer apathy. The likelihood is that succeeding years will see a return to the usual status quo, but nevermind: the knowledge that something like this is possible will provide an ample panacea.
In other news, it's Christmas today! .... Our movements mean that Nai and I are celebrating with her parents before we head off to mine on Christmas Eve. Nai and I have therefore exchanged gifts and it seems, *fingers crossed*, that those I've bought her have proven acceptable. She's bought me some things I asked for (including the new Pelican album on CD - nothing like actually giving people money and, since leaving Napster I'll need to be sure to do a bit more of that, - and Richard Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale: interesting subject, interesting idea, heard good things and it's so nice to see the man writing on a subject he actually knows something about, rather than expounding whacky anthropology and limited philosophy). Also received a lovely keepsake book designed to record information from each anniversary we have: space for a photo, where we are, what we're doing, etc. The first page is the wedding and she's filled it in for me... thereby referring quite neatly to the best present she's given me this year and managing to get it, figuratively speaking at least, under the tree. :-)
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December 20th, 2009
jexacinna
| 11:00 pm
Motherfuckingstupidfuckingawesomegetthefuckofflivejournalwithyourstupidwhineycrapandwriteaboutthefactthatwedon'thavetoputupwitfourfuckingyearhsofthesameoldshiteinstead.
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December 15th, 2009
jexacinna
| 04:27 pm - Writer's Block: Password protected
It wouldn't have the slightest impact: she knows all my passwords anyway.
Current Music: Gregor Samsa - What I Can Manage | Powered by Last.fm
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