Sunday 20 December 2009

Anti-RATM article - A response.

This article is in response to one written by Ms Ellen for the Guardian on the 20th December, 2009. The original can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/20/joe-mcelderry-rage-against-machine

Well, well, well. Alas, it seems that a Guardian journalist has missed the point entirely, just as they so often miss the spellchecker button before printing an article. And yet this time, to add insult to infamy, this piece sounds more like the Daily Mail. So obsessed about money and values. Tut, tut, and indeed, tut.

So Simon Cowell is going to get richer is he? Well, who'd have thunk it, eh? Ms Ellen seems so concerned with such a fact, and yet she has not studied the form, nor the functionality of this campaign for longer than it took her to submit such an article that is more riddled with holes than a colander on a firing range. One weeps for British journalism, one really does.

Is money all that Ms Ellen believes in? Can she not see a deeper point to this? A philosophy even? I have been an active member of the '#ratm4xmas' campaign and I, like many others, knew about RATM's connections with Sony BMG a long time ago. And SyCo (such an appropriate name) is part of the parent company too. Cowell will profit. Shocking.

This has been about music, and a rebellion against the sounds that infiltrate our shell-likes, not just at Christmas, but all year round. We of the imaginatively titled 'alternative' community, and those who do not like the sort of soulless muzak that Cowell generates have stood up and said 'F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me' (though I managed to censor there - and it did hurt to do so). We want to hear passion and bile, talent and guile, all mixed in with the songs that we choose to listen to because it makes us think, rather than turning our brains off. That is why we have taken this stand.

Christmas No1 or not, this campaign has been a resounding success. A community of like minds drawn together, two charities (Shelter & YouthMusic) benefiting and the possibility of a free gig in the new year from RATM. And a message sent to Cowell, or rather, his ego. He may have his money and his fame, but if we can keep but one prize from him, we shall. Even if it is so small as it will not bother him, he will acknowledge us.

It has also shown the power that people have in the new age. Only because of the revolution in downloading music and social networking has this revolution been possible. Before such times, we'd have had no voice. If only we'd have had such advances in years gone by, we might not have had to suffer through Millennium Prayer!

Also, Ms Ellen, to label the Xfactor a working class pursuit, is repugnant and you should be ashamed. We have the largest middle class of our history today, and it is their taste for the bland, and their philosophy of destruction that has helped build the Xfactor into what it is, and it is this that is destroying British music. The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, The Police, The Pistols, The Clash, Madness... These bands would be confined to pubs and tiny stages in today's market, as electronics and session musicians hide in the shadows as a tone deaf pretty face receives all the plaudits in stadiums. But they would not be international stadiums. We would be insular and strange. Today we do not encourage talented, thought provoking musicians. Instead we appreciate them and then give our money to machines. Because of the Cowell/Waterman/Fuller brand of boredom, we have lost our edge, and those of us who do listen to music with passion, are isolated, and under represented.

So another British 'journalist' misses the point entirely, attempts in vain to sound irreverent, witty, clued-in and intelligent. This is why many bloggers should be locked in their bedrooms and have their broadband connection cut. I fear Ms Ellen is a bandwagon jumper looking for a little support or a shock. She seeks not to educate, but to aggravate. I could not even bring to read the rest of her 'article' for the first piece lacked any understanding and/or class.

Comment is indeed free, dear Guardian, with your double edged blade, but it is also costly and publishing such drivel, even online, cracks your armour more than that which shields those music lovers whom Ms Ellen has chosen to attack. Still, let her rage away in the silence of the web, for the streets will be alive to sounds of Rage Against The Machine this Christmas.

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