Words.About.Music

I’m not gonna dwell on this as it’s already old news and frankly enough has been said on the subject, but here is the unedited rant that in part prompted me to start this blog. I suddenly realised that I had nowhere to write such drivel, and so with hours remaining in the race I experimented with Facebook to see if you really could bother 400 people at once with your long drawn ramblings. Turns out, you can. Though Facebook still sucks. It also turned out that the battle had already been won by the time I wrote this, but let’s not dwell on that.

If you enjoyed this RATM XMAS campaign, please give to Shelter as a way to say ‘thanks’ for your interesting discussions in the pub.

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This is a rant. Sorry. Stop reading now if you don’t wanna hear it. But please don’t stop reading once you start.

Rage Against The Machine are not ‘real music’. This is not rock vs pop. This is not anti-​​establishment. This is not about the pointing of hatred towards one man. If we are being honest about all this, the financial winners are Sony Music, nobody else. This is all just about pop music, and there are more important things to worry about.

But. I love pop music, in it’s truest sense. It should be unpredictable, constantly evolving, feeding off different parts of society and culture while simultaneously changing and influencing it. And Pop used to be just this (BritPop, despite generating bad music, was a great example of this), it’s a shame that in recent years the Top10 has been filled with artists originating from, or appearing on, one set of TV Shows. Until this month this trend showed no signs of disappearing. I have not engaged in Pop Music for many years, and didn’t expect to. Despite contrary belief, I wasn’t happy with this situation.

However, this campaign IS all about the fact that 10 years of developing a brand,15 weeks of prime time weekend promotion (if you think an ad during this show is worth a lot of money, imagine how much promotion the show itself is worth), HUGE press agencies working around the clock, the support of some of the most influential people in their fields, MILLIONS of £’s worth of marketing spend could be beaten by …….

Two people setting up a Facebook Group.

I spend my days battling with those above me, trying to convince them that the powers of traditional media are waning and, if harnessed correctly, there is opportunity to eclipse it. This is a fantastic example, and is close to not happening. RATM were 11 000 singles BEHIND this morning, and it’s unlikely they’ll catch up.

Unless there is a HUGE concerted effort in the next 7 hours (purchases count until midnight) to convince all those that joined the group to actually buy the song, then the predictable result will happen once again, and will continue to do so in coming years. In 12 months, nobody will remember how close we all came, and the records will never show how exciting this has all been.

Please, NOW, log on to whatever website you’ve bought music from previously (amazon 29p – and it DOES count, iTunes, Play.com, HMV.com, 7 Digital) and BUY IT, it’ll take less than 2 minutes if you have an account. If not, set up an account and buy some other songs while you’re there.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS. Copy this rant, put it in your status, and repost. Randomly message 5 people in the group and remind them to buy it NOW. Money goes to charity. You’ll get a free RATM show in the UK. You will be part of something, not just a Facebook Group.

TALK ABOUT IT. HAVE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT IT. ARGUE ABOUT IT. If you would like to have the opportunity to do the same thing in subsequent years….. BUY IT.