Rage against which machine?

I'm struck by how Rage Against the Machine's victory over Joe McElderry in the Xmas chart is seemingly described only as a battle about music. Do what? "Only about music"? What else could this much-loved media catchphrase, the 'chart battle', have been about?

Bill Bailey, referring in a Twitter post to those pointing out that McElderry and RATM are both signed to labels owned by Sony, insists that

the RATM/SycO record label argument misses the point, it's about the music, to which I am now headbangin in a deliriously happy way! HA!

Delirious headbangin aside, I think there's another, far bigger point being missed by those who share this view. You might not expect the Facebook campaigners to be thinking beyond their immediate goal of 'a protest against X-Factor monotony' (and nothing wrong with that), but this campaign isn't really just about the music. It's teaching us something absolutely critical about consumer culture.

What it amounts to is this: a section of the music-buying public has interpreted the free consumer choice of another section of the same public as an autocratic imposition by the provider. In other words, in making McElderry's single available as a (perfectly sensible) commercial proposition, Simon Cowell's record label Syco is seen not as part of a marketplace, offering consumers a free choice, but as a dictator which has 'decided' on a Christmas no. 1, and must be thwarted by community action to protect a cultural tradition. And yet - it's not their fault if people like what they offer, is it?

Perhaps this isn't teaching us anything completely new. I'm nowhere near alone in thinking that choice is not necessarily a good in itself. But half a million people have bought Killing in the Name simply to 'protest' against the perfectly rational action of 450,000 consumers in a consumerist society. They didn't seek to influence other consumers, by calling for a boycott of McElderry's single. They directed their protest at the record label, even as they bought copies of another track. The protest was against a perceived disempowerment, but that central grievance was a mistake: not being in the majority isn't the same as disempowerment.

It seems to me that this is something more than just a clash between rock and pop, or even a battle for the soul of the music industry: it's a strange lesson in how misdirected public feeling can be, and anybody interested in shaping, or even just understanding, public opinion should be listening very carefully.


*NME makes a good point about Rage Against the Machine's track not exactly being the stuff of genuine protest, and about Christmas no 1s not exactly being the venerable cultural tradition that this campaign makes out. A previous winner of the "Christmas chart battle" was none other than Mr Blobby, remember.