when it was decided that legally downloaded songs were allowed to count towards single sales in the charts, people started organising online campaigns to get old songs back in the charts for a joke (e.g. rick astley's "never gonna give you up"). a couple who organised some of the biggest campaigns did a campaign for RATM's "killing in the name" to be the number 1 single in the charts at christmas, as a kind of rebellion against "x factor" winners always getting the xmas no 1 spot ("the x factor" is like "american idol," and for the past few years whoever's won it has got the xmas number 1 - the show gives them a hell of a lot more publicity than the average musician, so they get an unfair advantage. now that "top of the pops" (the UK chart show) has gone, "the x factor" is the only prime-time music programme on british TV, which is a very depressing thought really).
rage did get the xmas no 1

, purely based on people downloading "killing in the name," without them even re-releasing it as a single. it was pretty amazing as firstly they didnt have the free publicity that joe mcelderry (this year's winner of "the x factor") had, and secondly "killing in the name" only counted in the chart if you downloaded it separately from the rest of the album, whereas joe's single was available as a download single and as a CD single.
i think it was a brilliant result as it got a rock song to the top of the singles chart for what feels like the first time in ages and it got people talking about non-"x factor" music again. "the x factor" is one of the most popular TV shows in this country and people talk about it all the time, but sometimes it's impossible to talk to people about music that
isnt from it - "x factor" singers are the only musicians people are interested in now!

we used to have musicians competing with each other for the xmas no 1 and people used to place bets on who would get it. when the x factor came along about 5 years ago it practically killed that tension off - it got heaps of publicity, people stopped noticing that other musicians were releasing songs at the same time, so the x factor winners always got the xmas no 1. it was turned into practically a one-horse race.
the rage campaign changed that and hopefully it will spark a permanent change as im getting bored of the fact that the only music you ever seem to see or hear in this country nowadays is from "the x factor"! it does find talented singers and the winners always seem to be nice people so it's not like i dont want them to do well, but they always sing bland songs and i think it's a total waste of talent, and the focus on singing talent only and no other talent means that the talents of writing songs and playing instruments have taken a back seat. pretty much every year, the x factor winner's debut single has sounded just like the previous year's except for the voice: there always seems to be the same song structure (basically a westlife ballad with one difference: after the big downbeat just before the final chorus, a choir comes in to sing backing vocals), song length, backing music, lyrical theme (either a , a song about (i.e. a thinly-veiled song about the x factor) or a song to be about love or winning), and even the videos look the same.