Rage Against the X Factor Machine

I have joined the anti X Factor rebellion and bought Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name to get it to Christmas number one,

writes Dan Wainwright

.

More than 700,000 people have joined a Facebook group pledging to do so because they are fed up of the X Factor winner being guaranteed the lucrative festive top slot.

Now I have nothing against young Joe McElderry who won this year's karaoke contest, you understand. I wish him all the best in his eventual career singing to delighted crowds in Pizza Express, as has happened to the winner of the first series, Steve Brookstein.

But I have simply had enough of the predictability of the Christmas singles market which is programmed to reward the winner of a £1 million record contract with a guaranteed number one to kickstart his new life. It's getting insulting that they don't even cover a classic tune anymore. This year we have a track Miley Cyrus released in March.

I must admit I was slightly disturbed that salvation from this cycle of Christmas cover versions has come in the form of the 1992 heavy rock song Killing In The Name.

I'm not a fan and I doubt I'll be putting this tune on my iPod playlist. It's a rather sweary and unpleasant track, one that I am all too familiar with having spent too many Saturdays in the Wulfrun Hall, at Blast Off's once-in-a-blue-moon Corrosion night. For the uninitiated it's generally the favoured haunt of young men and women wearing black T-Shirts bearing the names of bands that also sing shouty, raspy, sweary songs. I don't really fit in.

I get the feeling that this is what voting Ukip must feel like. I don't really agree with the choices offered to me by the powers that be so I've registered a protest vote even though I wouldn't normally want my choice to win either. I just know I wouldn't want to live in a world where Joe McElderry decided how much tax I have to pay or whether or not to bail out the banks.

Cheryl, Louis, Simon and the surgically enhanced one often bleat on about it being up to the nation who wins and I felt it was about time to play them at their own game and actually try to see if we could upset the apple cart somewhat.

There's a line in the Rage song that says something like "I won't do what you tell me", if I interpret the shouting and swearing correctly, that basically sums up how I feel about it all.

I don't want a sixth X Factor Christmas number one in a row. I don't want this show's eventual money spinning product to be a fixture as entrenched in Christmas as the Queen's message, sprouts and paper hats. It doesn't deserve to be.

Christmas traditions are meant to be something that last forever. And Cowell's own ability to forget he ever managed acts like Steve Brookstein and Leon Jackson shows just how expendable this year's winner is.

At least the Christmas jumper your nan made comes out once a year. The winner of the X Factor can be binned as quickly as an empty box of After Eights.

But wait, let's not overlook one important fact. Rage Against The Machine were signed to Sony when they recorded this song. And which record label has first dibs on all of Cowell's protégés?

It doesn't matter. Cowell will always win no matter what we little people try to do. But at least buying this heavy rock song would end the reign of the X Factor at Xmas. That's 79p I don't mind sticking in the back pocket of Cowell's high-waisted trousers.

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