Entertainment For Lively Minds
I don't care about the Christmas number one and what's more they can't *make* me care
I woke this morning to a torrent of tweets about what is and what isn't going to be the Christmas Number One. Bookmakers are piling in, somebody's suggesting that we should buy a Rage Against The Machine record in order to protest against the commercialisation of the music industry (!), news programmes on the BBC (!!) are full of puffs for the winner of X Factor and everybody's ringing up for a comment as if the chart were an organic expression of people's interest rather than the barely perceptible twitch of a long-dead corpse.
What I want to know is this - WHERE WAS ALL THIS INTEREST WHEN CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONES WERE INTERESTING?
What record shops are people going to rush into this year to buy these records? Which pressing plants are going to be put on overtime stamping out this Christmas's equivalent of "Ernie - The Fastest Milkman In The West" or "There's No-one Quite Like Grandma"? Where will you and your family be watching Christmas Day "Top Of The Pops"? Have you got your copy of Smash Hits with its Christmas flexi-disc featuring messages from the stars yet? No? Know why? Because none of these things exist any more. That's the march of time. And yet the meeja seems to have a desperate, pathetic need to pretend that we're all as excited about the advent of pop's big season as we once were.
Here's my advice. If you want to indulge yourself in some seasonal spirit and support recorded music, go and buy some ancient Christmas record that you always felt like buying. There are millions of them. It's possible to have a great Christmas without having to be led by the nose to contribute to the funds of or further inflate the already perilously taut self-regard of Simon Cowell, Rage Against The Machine, the people who have to fill the bulletins of 24-hour rolling news stations and their ilk. This isn't about putting out records any more. This is about how stupid and bovine they think we are.
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Stupid and bovine
Weren't we always that? There's No One Quite like Grandma and every Cliff Richard Christmas number one suggest we've shown little desire to stray from the herd in the last couple of decades.
When was the last good Christmas Number One?
I don't care about the quality of the records
I care about the fact that people used to be left to make up their own mind rather than having to have their interest directed and manipulated by a load of string pullers.
People ARE left to make up their own mind
- we can all switch off Twitter and ITV and Radio 1 and go and listen to Toumani Diabaté or Burial or Thea Gilmore if we want. But it just happens that among the people who like to chat on Twitter and Facebook, this is a buzzing topic of conversation at the moment.
I don't see who's pulling whose strings in this RATM campaign though: from where I'm standing it was a genuinely spontaneous upwelling. If it were just the screw-you spoilsports and "real music" bores that the naysayers seem to be making out it was, it wouldn't have taken off the way it has. I've been keeping an eye on the variety of people tweeting and talking about it, and it has been everyone from teenagers to ageing ravers, hip hop fans to folkies who have got on board with this, for as many reasons as there are people involved. It was emphatically NOT just an infantile negative gesture, but was a multi-faceted, peculiar, creative and fascinating thing to watch. And like so many things that seem peurile to us in the net-powered world, it is just a hint of what might come. After all, a lot of people sneer at flashmobs, but what were this year's (ongoing) Iranian demonstrations if not flashmobs themselves?
It might have been a silly, peurile, absurd pyrrhic victory, but for a lot of people it was THEIR silly, peurile, absurd pyrrhic victory, and that means something. No idea what, but SOMETHING.
Well put, sir. As well as
Well put, sir.
As well as those things you mention, there was a healthy streak of mischief running through the whole business.
However if BBC3 have show next year called 'Choose the Alternative Christmas No. 1' hosted by George Lamb and featuring D-list celebs arguing for which track should be resurrected to take on X Factor, I'll be hanging on to my 29p.*
* Unless they choose Party Hard by Andrew WK....
Joe
nice one you've compared democracy campaigns around the world to a mobile phone company getting bored 20 somethings together to sing Pink songs in train station!We may have reached the pinnacle of tommy rot uttered about RATM/xfactor.
I'd never thought of this nonsense giving some hope to lost and confused facebook users. Both RATM campaign and X factor are joyless bunch seemingly at odds with the simple wonderful nature of pop music.
No
I haven't "compared" them: I have pointed out - correctly - that the mechanisms through which they are organised are the same.
If you want to try and prove otherwise then do so, but don't accuse me of "tommy rot" otherwise.
And while we're at it don't acuse X hundred thousand people that you don't know of being "a joyless bunch" on the basis of hearsay either. All the evidence I have seen suggests that the myriad of people who supported this campaign supported it for myriad reasons, mainly pretty joyful, or at least gleeful.
As I believe the young people sign off curt missives nowadays: K THX BAI.
P.S.
Bah humbug!
I agree
I'll always have a soft spot for Benny Hill's Ernie as it was number one when I was born. The only time that I can think of recently when the Christmas number one was interesting was when Mad World made it a few years ago. In the year of the invasion of Iraq, the choice of that song in amongst what Joni Mitchell would call "songs of joy and peace" was telling: it felt like a genuine reflection of the mood of a nation.
Fun!
I think that in days gone by was the sense of fun that came with the Christmas No 1, even 'Another Brick'! Now it is just so planned and arch.
Bring back the fun!
Ian
"Planned and arch"
That's exactly it.
Just the facts
Worth looking at the No 1's of the past.
http://www.philbrodieband.com/muso_xmas-no1-hits.htm
Some brilliant tunes, some not so brilliant!
Ian
The Cycle (blatant generalisation division):
Something is interesting, fun and has developed organically, and becomes (perhaps a small) part of the culture.
Said matter makes a bit of money.
Marketing consultants and businessmen move in who don't really get why it was a good thing in the first place but see it makes a fair bit of money and thinks it can make more. Powerpoint presentations ensue.
Said matter is advertised/flogged to death.
For a short period everyone is interested. Short period ends.
Marketing and businessmen keep going on said matter, and will do so until the next thing comes along.
Cynical? Moi?
It's All Downloading & Crystal Meth These Days.
Two and a half pints of something down the line, at the age of 16 after being taken on my first works Midday Christmas Eve pub spin, I staggered into John Manship's Tracks and bought Swing Out Sister's Breakout covering all basses regarding my sister and her present for that year. At least half an hour later I was woken from my mid afternoon slumber by a kindly police officer who told me to bugger off home. The stagger home resulted in the loss of any food, drink or vinyl I had acquired on that very day. I have vivid memories of The Box of Delights doing my noggin in later that day as I weaved in and out of conciousness.
My sister got a scratched copy of Cafe Bleu by the Styles Council that year. I stole it back a fortnight later. What a rotter.
I just it was all a bit unChristmassy really
on all fronts.
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/load-raging-nonsense
RATM
I like the idea of Rage Against The Machine being number one, simply because of the childish delight I'd feel at having the song's famous "F*** you I won't do what you tell me" refrain at the top of the charts, and secondly for the ridiculous irony of all those buyers demonstrating how they won't be manipulated by Cowell, man, by doing exactly what someone else has told them to do.
But it won't happen, because in general people don't care enough. Another irony, perhaps.
my response to the RATM refusniks is:
f*ck you I won't do "f*ck you I won't do what you tell me" when you tell me.
Am I missing the point...
or is this not actually about being 'told' to do something?
Simon Cowell is not 'telling' me to buy The Climb, but there's an inevitability about the X Factor winner's song being no. 1 that's become a bit dull.
I'm not downloading the RATM track because I'm being 'told' to either. I'm doing it because it's a bit of a wheeze.
What I'd love is for Pet Shop Boys' Christmas EP to make it. Now that's arch...
Toys out the pram...
I always thought the RATM line was 'F**k you I won't tidy my room when you tell me'.
Daddy will be most upset.
Whatever other faults they may have
it's a little unfair to ascribe any fault in this whole desperate schebang to Rage Against The Machine, who have, as far as I've seen, been co-opted without their consent or knowledge.
I've bought two new Christmas songs this year, heading for a compilation playlist for the big day. The first is Tim Minchin's funny and, though openly sentimental, rather touching "White Wine In The Sun".
And then there's HMHB with "It's Clichéd to be Cynical at Christmas":
it's a bit sad that christmas number one won't be one of two
I really really loved the Tim Minchin, just the right amount of realism and sentimentality. Reminded me of a very different previous Christmas number one:
I think Christmas is the time to search for warm feelings. But I like it when you don't have to turn off your mind or sense of taste. Sentiment works best when its about something.
That's my problem with Simon Cowell's production line. That's my problem with the rage against the machine lot. The original song: very good song about the way the American machine functions and a generations attitude towards it.
What the F*** has that got to do with this Christmas. The song is not about Simon Cowell, its about a completely different set of problems and emotions.
If people really want to beat Cowell then buy a different song that is being released for Christmas.
Mr Hepworth has it spot on. Let's forget about all the pressures of the way music is pushed at us, either from the music industry or from the web hysterical frenzies. Let's just listen to the music we like and enjoy ourselves. Who cares who is number one. It's a meaningless position anyway. You can call something number one, you can create hype and assert that because a percentage of the population thinks something is the best that it is, but what does that actually mean.
Nothing to me.
Tim Minchin?
Yesterday
I introduced my two year old daughter to Wizzard's 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday' - the delight in her eyes was a wonder to behold. We had Shakin' Stevens, Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You', Slade, The Pogues, John and Yoko, Waitresses, Stop The Cavalry.
It was great and we danced all morning
It sounds lovely
But I'll be phoning Social Services about your decision to include Shakin' Stevens in that list.
That's a great Christmas song
I grew up in the 80's - nothing wrong with a bit of Shaky at Christmas.
"nothing wrong with a bit of Shaky at Christmas"
I think you meant "nothing wrong with a bit of Shakey at Christmas"
All hail the harbinger of gloom, Mr Neil Young, esq.
"Star Of Bethlehem"
(well, its nearly a Christmas song...)
Sounds
incredibly like our playlist yesterday, but the daugther is 3
It's only certain adults who care
My kids (12, 10, 7) have no interest in what will be Christmas number one, yet they adored X Factor, are receiving Lady GaGa, Black Eyed Peas and JLS CDs in their stockings and watch 4Music all the time. So they love music - their own types of music, not stuff I have forced on them - but don't have the frame of reference to care what is number one at Christmas.
It seems to me that it is only the 30-40-50-60 somethings like us reminiscing, the meeja people who need to fill space, and the music industry types, who see Christmas (quite rightly) as a huge business opportunity, who care what is Christmas number one.
good Christmas songs
never go near the charts
FACT!
Depends what you consider good, I suppose...
Happy Christmas!
sorry
Not a fan. It starts off well, like a Tom Waits bar-room ballad.
But then it goes all novelty Irish shanty. And while I accept that this is because they are (well, some of them), it doesn't stop it from grating with my ears.
Just imagine if the whole song had been like the intro. Maybe with some tenor sax and more lyrics about the characters in said "drunk tank".
yeah just what the world needs
more tedious songs about drunks by Mr Faux skid row Tom "Oh just speak properly and get a shave " Waits and I can safely say no record has ever been improved by the addition of "Maybe with some tenor sax ".
"improved by the addition with some tenor sax"?
Born to Run?
Springsteen or Frankie.
You are the jury....
" Me supervisor
says if ya late again we're putting you on daily sign on...."
The female voice in that skit.....
Always reminded me of Karen Grant in Brookie. No idea who the hell it really was though! My money's on Jayne Casey or Margi Clarke.
I may be wrong (and I often am)
But I always though the clip actually *was* an extract from Brookie.
Isn't it Barry Grant who says "Sorry burrive left me card at 'ome"?
I always assumed it was Holly Johnson
and unknown female acting out the skit. Let me go and get my double vinyl version out and have listen.
Here's the intro
the sleeve is the usual gnomic Paul Morley effete twaddle can't see a credit.
Could be Paul Rutherford.
why novelty?
I dunno why you say novelty? I like the song. It's probably my favorite Christmas song of all time. Although its the obvious one.
It gives a representation of Christmas that is real. The misery, loneliness, arguments and pain as well as the love and nostalgia and beauty and communal experience.
It takes you to all the parts of Christmas.
It isn't an ensemble piece, it's a duet, and one about a real relationship, one that is complicated and beautiful, one that destroys as well as raises up... it's romantic, its cynical, its optimistic, its joyous, and its a modern folk classic.
The lyrics are brilliant, they are performed wonderfully, the tune is strong. It is universal and it is specific. It has layers and every listen rewards you in new ways. It is worth returning to again and again, Christmas after Christmas.
But fair enough everyone has different tastes in music and all that.
Didn't all this interest
start when bookmakers started taking bets on what would be No 1 at Christmas?
I don't recall bookmakers odds being quoted until probably some time around the mid-nineties.
Why should people care?
The very odd thing about this is that the sort of people that would appreciate Rage Against The Machine musically or lyrically surely have no interest in the singles charts at all at any time of year. Why should they care about Simon Cowell when he probably doesn't even blip on their radar? I know what the song that won X Factor last year was but I don't know who won. I'm not sure that I ever heard it. Going back another year I couldn't name either winner or song. I'm aware that this years final was yesterday but I don't know who won and doubt if I'll knowingly hear the resultant tune so why does anyone that doesn't care about X Factor, care at all?
Well Said.
I don't care.
I love the X Factor for what it is. A talent show. The fact that it is used to line Simon Cowell's pockets is of no concern to me.
Its entertainment, pitched at the masses, and you can either get on and enjoy it, or ignore it.
I have kids that love it, and if it encourages a love of music and performing in them, I'm delighted.
Of course the rolling media use it to pad out their shows, but that's a problem with the rolling media, not with Cowell's slick operation.
*Edit: I just read this back and it sounded as if I was being ironic. I wasn't.
I agree.
I can't work myself up to *hate* Simon Cowell or the X-Factor. I can't watch more than short bursts of it as it gives me a headache, and I'm not a fan of the Mariah Carey vocalisations, but I'm pretty sure that the lot of an X-Factor winner or finalist is much better than that of the mainstream pop stars of the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Yes, the constant 'good vibes' can grate but surely Cowell himself is the antidote to that, with his frequent 'cruel' interjections?
The format of the show is clearly a (ahem) raging success, and it's hard not to admire its relentlessness. Would we really prefer to go back to Opportunity Knocks or New Faces?
I like....
....that one George Michael has out at the minute, "December Song". It's well written, has some lovely chord sequences, and as is usual for George, it is sung with the voice of an angel. Oh, and its about Christmas. I hope to hear it a lot more, and because of this, I will buy it.
I don't give a fiddlers if it sells more than anything else.
Meanwhile
bizzarely someone's taken the brilliant executive decision to delete the George Michael (physical) single on day of release (i.e. today), assuming that nobody would want a hard copy as a gift for Christmas. Can't think why with ideas like that the record business is struggling so badly...
How many shops are stocking it?
Apart from the charity/reality singles racked up with the Polos by the checkouts in supermarkets, all singles are now what would once have been considered 'limited edition'.
Asking HMV and Amazon to order up as many physical copies as they think they will need to sell in the next ten days doesn't strike me as too oddd.
amazon are
selling the X Factor mp3 for 29p. I'm guessing that's been sold at a loss.
It certainly wouldn't be odd
but unfortunately as I understand it there was a limit put on how many copies retailers could have...
Great song.
That's the first time I've heard it. Totally agree about 'the voice of an angel' - George Michael is ludicrously underrated, I feel. Brilliant pop songwriter, singer, arranger, producer. Certainly compared to the post-Westlife pop landscape, he is a veritable genius.
His 'Older' album is still one I play regularly. A minor melancholic masterpiece.
It's uncannily like Paddy
It's uncannily like Paddy McAloon.
Just heard the GM single
does he really describe snow as "sugar from jesus"!
Hang on....
...is this all a ruse by the Government to get us out buying records again? Oh dear, I smell a conspiracy. Or not.
I used to care
But the charts are no longer interesting, mainly because as someone pointed out, it's all planned out months in advance. No surprises anymore.
As much as I dislike George Michael and his oeuvre, I don't mind his new Christmas single. But it won't be number one.
George Michael's face
appeared so stretchified on "The X Factor" that it was like looking at Kiki The Frog from "Hector's House".
How about WORD
do a Christmas Flexi next year? - "Hi, this is The National, and we hope you're Christmas is as depressingly Tindersticks-esque as ours"
Now *that's* a good idea.
I'm making a list. (I'm checking it twice.)
Why not do two?
One for "who's naughty" and one for "who's nice"?
Brooooooooooooooooooooooooooooce.........
Just ask yourself
How much *fun* would it be to do that?
And also, isn't he looking more like Rob Bryden every day?
Or maybe Brydon
is turning into the Boss. If you ever get him into the podcast booth you have to take some video of his impression cos I've never seen it.
Broooooce: I was at that gig
Edit: Sorry, no I wasn't. I saw him in London two days later.
Oh, the irony
I've just joined the Facebook group "Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody to beat The X Factor to Number One".
Life's so complicated...
Whatever happens
Looks like a muppet will be number one for Christmas...
Pah! Some of us are buying Christmas records all year around.
Have some bloody Bob Rivers
http://open.spotify.com/track/7rJ58VRt4olhEjjSjyKIcw
AYou can't beat a bit of Bob at Christmas..
And it also acts as a reminder to Chris Moyles that the lumpen, clodhopping submusical bilge he produces has no right to be called parodic whilst Bob Rivers is laying claim to the same adjective.
You may not like the music...
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/The-Official-BBC-Children-In-Need-Medle...
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/silver-bells/id341597881?i=341597979&v0...
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/christmas-in-the-heart/id331549170
But at least your 79p will help someone else this Christmas.
you can just
give it direct too.
Of course.
Just suggested it, as we were talking about buying Xmas tunes.
I've been thinking about getting the Dylan album, or some some tracks & this thread jogged my memory.
I like to think my money does something other than prop up the ailing music biz at this time of year.
Ah, how we railed at our parents
who lambasted the charts as a cynical money making exercise, pushing tuneless crap at impressionable youth who didn't know any better and didn't like proper songs with words you could hear and everything. Oh! for some Dickie Valentine, Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby they (and your grandparents) would say.
Twas ever thus and ever thus shall be, as long as someone's selling music and there's a Christmas...
Absolutely.
Illuminatus is right. All Xmas music produced in the past was made with loving care in snow-covered cottages and released so people could feel happy. Any money made was strictly incidental and looked upon as a fortunate bonus and, of course, donated to the needy.
How I long for the uncynical days of There's No-one Quite Like Grandma.
I'm imagining Simon Cowell at the moment, lying on the beach at Sandy Lane, wiping away the bitter tears of frustration spilled because his tune hasn't made #1 for xmas. O woe is he. Hear the rattle as he empties his nostrils into another wad of twenties. He'd use fifties but they aren't quite as absorbent. But they are good for on the fire.Which is important at this time of year. Much prettier flame than the smaller denominations.
Meanwhile another bunch of hapless cannon-fodder, buffed fingernails sharpened and ready to get a better grip on the ladder, prepare themselves for next year's carnival of the grotesques.
Ricky Gervais summed it up better than I could. We now queue up to watch muti-millionaires sneer at the socially inadequate. What next? Let's play "laugh at the funny ASD person" as they try to interact with us normal types?
Mind you, if the X-Factor winner was blonde with big tits, I might have a different view. But it's all birds what watch it so we've got some poncing nancy-boy what's won it. Bloody disgrace, I say. Wouldn't be like this if Maggie was still in power. Tried to have Renee and Renato shot by the SAS, she did. My mate down the pub said so. He was in the Paras. Maggie wanted Eisturbenze Neubaten at #1 for Christmas becaus she was radical. Or was it Frank Ifield? Anyway. My mate was in the backup group ready to go when the word came through that Renato was Tom Waits in disguise and being ironic so it was all called off. You listen to it again. You can hear it.
charts?
I didn't even realize they still existed. I've never seen the X-factor or any of those shows. I am blissfully out of touch.
I realised the charts still existed...
but have never had the slightest interest in them in my 40-plus years of enjoying music. Am a little discombobulated by the revelation that so many of the Massive get exercised by this.
Lots of us used to care
It's not really that surprising that the type of people that populate this forum have had a keen interest in the charts. Even people with only a passing interest in pop music used to be interested in them. When I was about 13 or 14 I used to go home from school for lunch and I was very popular on a Tuesday afternoon when I came back with the brand new chart scribbled down as it was read out (by Johnny Walker?). That said, I currently have no idea what the current top ten even looks like - I've just looked and I expected to know some of them but, despite the fact that there's only one artist that I've never heard of, I don't think I've heard any of the records.
If you fancy a change....
This would be an interesting alternative....
Christmas songs from Billy Childish, Holly Golightly, Wat Tyler, Goldblade and Singing Loins....
http://damagedgoods.co.uk/news/845/a-damaged-christmas-gift-for-you-digi...
Whta do you mean?
there is still a singles chart? I hadn't noticed for years. Aren't both RATM n the X Facvtor thingee on Sony. So they win either way.
My vote is for the muppets - so take that any way you like
i like this from the PSB Christmas EP - its just bonkers
I think you're being a bit miserabalist here:
there used to be lots of interest in what was going to be the Xmas no. 1 - certainly in the 70's, a little less perhaps in the 80's and maybe even less in the 90's. It was always a matter of great interest on pop radio and in the pop press. And Xmas hits have always been planned - Slade recorded "Merry Xmas" in the summer in a boiling hot studio and Xmas hits have nearly always been recorded and marketed well in advance.
I think the big difference is that in the noughties the pop business has become much higher profile and it's taken a bigger share of mainstream media. We can moan that ITV seems happy to let Simon Cowell use it as a platform for himself but in reality, all he's done is move the business onto a bigger stage - while making sure, of course, that he's got the biggest share of the pie!
Try to *explain* the charts
When you have kids, it's always amusing to have to describe to them things they have no experience of. The "Christmas Number One" story led to me having to explain to my bemused 8-year-old what "Number One" and "the charts" meant. He loves music (with rather more heavy taste than me) but this was all very new to him, and, I must say, of little interest. "Well son, you know when we go into the games shop and the boxes are arranged in order of which one people have bought the most of this week? It's a bit like that". "OK, I get that Dad, but why is it on the news? It's not very important, is it? And is there a shop you can buy pop music in then?"
Sony/Epic
I may be wrong here, but isn't RATM on Epic, an offshoot of Sony who Cowell works for?
Never been that concerned
About Christmas Number 1. Always's used to spend whole of December wondering what would win the Festive Fifty though.
Could care less whether it's RATM or X Factor. Although i bought the Pet Shop Boys EP, and that deserves to outsell both of them
Love the covers
on the PSB EP. not too crazy about the title track
Rumour has it
Rage Against The Machine: 502,672
Joe McElderry : 450,838
but its the net so thats probably (jingle) balls!
EDIT: No it ain't. Well thats the first time I've owned a No.1 single in many a year
BBC Entertainment reporter
Colin Paterson says:
Yeah, I'm still struggling to come to terms with that. But they say time's a healer...
a little
mulled wine just came down my nose.
Love this
I'm often impressed by the artistic endeavors of some people on the internet.
I love this
Thanks a bunch for that.
I won't be able to sleep tonight...
RATM are #1
Bye bye Joe McElderry. See you on the tills at ASDA in a couple of years' time.
Or in a Buzzcocks' line-up. I don't know which would be more embarassing, really.
Has it done him any harm?
Has the "battle" done him any harm. This year the the media seems to have been focused on artist vs artist so much so that the names of the actual songs involved haven't lodged in my mind (I don't think I've heard either of them). Last year the focus was on the song being sung (I remember what the song was but I don't actually know if the X-Factor winner was male or female, black or white).
As the actual single (song and performance) doesn't seem to make any difference to it's success, I think it will have been better for this year's X-Factor winner to have had his name bandied around.
The one thing to take away from this
whether you liked the songs or no, and whether you liked the campaigns or no, is something to be shouted from the rooftops: BUYING MUSIC IS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS!!!
It's all irrelevant
as it would appear that my very off the cuff "Old Fashioned Phrases" post holds the much more prestigious Word Blog Christmas no 1 in both "Hot Topics". I have never been so proud and would like to thank my family, all at The Word and most of all those of you that contributed.
Merry Christmas one and all!
But you don't get a royalty on every post made to it, do you?
Noooo... but y'know who does though? That Simon Cowell again innit? Yup... Dave is just the front man, Dev Hell is really a Cowell vehicle for the takeover of magazine publishing.
The Word and Mixmag today, tomorrow it'll be The Listener and Look In, then there'll be no stopping him, trust me...