Fans tap into social media to rage against X-Factor

The British have this fixation with the n° 1 Christmas single that is quaint. Very often, a charity record gets the prized position (either that or Sir Cliff Richard). But for some time, X-Factor artists have been dominating the spot. In 2009, two British fans of Rage Against the Machine launched a viral campaign to reclaim the n° 1 spot from X Factor (why not just call if Rage Against the X-Factor?).

They asked people to buy a copy of “Killing in the Name” from December 13 2009. The idea is to stop the X-Factor contestant Joe McElderry from getting to n° 1.

It’s cute, but it is of course a blatant case of chart rigging at a large scale.

Nothing against Joe McElderry

The Rage Against The Machine Christmas campaign didn’t start specifically as a swipe at Joe McElderry—it just happened to collide with his big moment. Long before he was crowned X Factor champion, a grassroots rebellion was already brewing. But by December 2009, the UK Christmas Number 1 had turned into an unlikely showdown: a fresh-faced reality TV winner versus a 17-year-old blast of rap-metal fury that had only ever peaked at Number 25 back in 1992.

Fuelled by the rising power of social media, Jon and Tracy Morter helped ignite one of the first truly viral music campaigns. What began in online forums quickly snowballed into a national movement, spilling onto news headlines and into everyday conversation.

Killing In The Name

And it worked—spectacularly. Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name stormed back into the charts to claim the 2009 Christmas Number 1, shifting a staggering 502,000 copies in a single week. McElderry’s The Climb put up a very strong fight, landing at Number 2 with 450,000 copies, but the upset was complete.

In the years since, Killing In The Name has racked up around 1.4 million UK chart sales, bolstered by over 800,000 downloads and tens of millions of streams. The Climb trails with 859,000 sales, though it holds one notable edge—it remains the bigger physical seller of the two.

If you’re reading this after December 13, check Killing In The Name

So what happened to Joe McElderry?

Although McElderry was robbed of the UK Christmas n° 1, he got the top spot in Ireland and later the n° 1 in the UK too. He then went on to have a career with the show Popstar to OperaStar (getting more public votes than all the other contestants combined). In total, he has recorded five albums, appeared in several musical plays and still tours the UK.

Not bad for a reality show winner!

Joe McElderry on Amazon UK

Joe McElderry official site

Read lyrics by Michael Leahy