Rage Against the X-Factor

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:08 PM

Well, here we have it once again 'Folk' vs 'The Real Folk'.
Face up to reality; whether we like it or not we live in a capitalist society where market forces apply. The real folk, Joe Public, whatever you want to call him obviously prefers reality TV to anything we can supply and there's sod all we can do about it, so let's just let him get on with it while we excercise our own minority, off the radar preferences!

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 08:33 AM

I recommend Ben Elton's novel "Chart Throb". You'll never watch another of these cr*p "talent" shows again!

RtS
(I suspected that Rifles song was one of Tams' from Sharpe as well)

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 09:32 AM

Not sure what happened this time, but I saw a clip of a previous year's final, on the news, where the other contestants formed a scrum-hug around the winner, who, metres from the mic, still kept singing away loud and clear - marvelous!

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 09:24 AM

I `ad that Simon Cowell in my cab the other day. `e was on `is way to America to flog `is God awful programme to a los Angeles telly company.
I said, "`ere, I been wanting to ask you this for ages. Why did all you on that panel looked so surprised when that lovely singer Susan Boyle did `er stuff?. You must `ave known `ow good she was when you first `eard `er at the audition."
`e said, " Course we did. But you`ve gotta convince the knuckle draggers that she just come in off the street. Then they`ll watch it again expecting more miracles, take in more adverts and go and buy another computer game or t.v. meal or something. Luvvly Jubbly. Nice little earner!!"

Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 12:13 PM

Have started a new thread highlighting the John Tams song (The 2nd track being O'er The Hills From Sharpe)...So, all those against Cowell, you have no excuse...GO BUY, and help a worthy cause in the process.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST,Hantslad
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 12:19 PM

http://www.facebook.com/pages/LOVE-FAREWELL-The-Band-and-Bugles-of-The-Rifles-John-Tams-HELP-FOR-HEROES/211877569440?ref=nf#/pages/LOVE-FAREWELL-The-Band-and-Bugles-of-The-Rifles-John-Tams-HELP-FOR-HEROES/211877569440

Found this link to the Love Farewell by John Tams and the Rifles Band

Lets push this past Cowell, The Coldstream Guards and also the three Soldiers who are only giving 25p of every sale!!!

This is amazing stuff from an great folk Singer and a World Class Band

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: melodeonboy
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:50 AM

Hmmm.... the only real loser is Joe Public. Cowell makes loads of money and gets extra publicity ("There's only one thing worse than being talked about..."), RATM make loads of money and get extra publicity, and we end up with the same old crap, pointless debates about the same old crap and the same old limited choices.

To me it's a bit like having a go at McDonald's - 'cos you object to junk food - by buying thousands of burgers at Burger King!

Daft and pointless!

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:24 AM

Just heard it on the BBC news and it's clearly a new recording and a different song. The television coverage of the funeral in Wimborne definitely featured Over the Hills and Far Away.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: gnomad
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:21 AM

Further to my earlier post the BBC story here says more. Now I know why it sounded like the John Tams piece. Doh.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: gnomad
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:08 AM

I heard that R4 item too, Ralphie, despite being completely talked-over you could just identify it as "Love Farewell". Sounded very like the J.Tams arrangement that featured on the "Sharpe" album a few years ago.

I gather the new disc is being sold in aid of the Help for Heroes charity. With or without that endorsement I would sooner see this disc at number one than any of the x-factor output, but that is just my taste, I don't expect the country to agree.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 04:46 AM

forget buying commercial crap? I don't watch mental wallpaper? Remember "X" stands for "don't care" as well as "don't know".

And all this is important? I feel far more emotion for the homeless at Xmas and not all of them are victims of "other" peoples' hedonism.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 04:20 AM

When BBC South covered the funeral of rifleman in Wimborne Minster this week, the opening music was John Tams singing 'Over the Hills and Far Away.' I don't know if it was actually played at the service or if it was the BBC's idea to use it as 'background.'

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 02:42 AM

Have just caught a segment of a BBC TV news story. A Rifle regiment in Afghanistan, have revisited a Napoleonic song with up to date words, Solo singer with military band, and not mawkish in that Mull Of Kintyre way (Judging from the 30 secs I heard)...Tune was definitely familiar. Maybe with enough publicity this could be the one to topple the Cowell empire? (Apparently it is a bugler from the rifles that plays the last post when an aircraft returns to the UK with the fallen).
It does seem more fitting than the winner of "Pap" Factor to me.
BTW, nothing against RATM, and the facebook campaign. I would support anything rather than Mr Cowell.
And at least we (in the UK) seem to be spared the horrors of previous years....Mistletoe and Wine with Mr Blobby anyone?)
And to reply to Smedley, I don't think that the facebook campaign promoting RATM has anything to do with the band itself. Just a couple of disgruntled fans using the web for a display of "civil disobedience" Nowt wrong with that!

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Effsee
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:06 PM

CS..."worth throwing up here."...yup! HOOOOOOOOOOOOAgh!

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:02 PM

Sheep ..............baa

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 06:33 PM

There's only one point here.

'Killing in the Name Of' by RATM is a far, far better song than anything that is likely to come out of the W Factor.


I'd equally be happy to see a trad unaccompanied ballad as Christmas number 1 but somehow I think RATM stand a bit more of a chance.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 05:27 PM

I didn't buy all their albums as the initial potency of the music diminished for me. But they certainly haven't fallen into the production line ethos of many bands. I think they only put out about half a dozen albums or so? Hardly equal in 'production line' terms to most of this forums beloved revival artists output anyway.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Smedley
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 05:18 PM

We'll have to agree to disagree - RATM are on the production line as much as anyone. If anything, Cowell is more honest by being straightforward about his motivations.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 05:14 PM

Yes, I understand your point. excecpt that RATM are a real band who actually write & play their own songs with their own instruments. They may be signed up to a big label, but it's all their own work. I'm not sure *capitalism* itself is the target, but rather specifically the Cowell X-Factor machine that mass produces mechanically reclaimed muzik.
That's the way I understand it anyway.
Plus, I don't think it was organised as anything desperately serious or intellectually considered - just a peoples poke at the production line - worth throwing up here.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Smedley
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 05:00 PM

CS, the point I was making is that those who want to be 'against the evil capitalist machine' are only choosing another item from a different shelf in the same supermarket. *Really* radical.......

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:56 PM

Well, I doubt the kids who made up the Facebook page were thinking really deeply about all the implications - I guess it's just a kind of showing one's bum to Simon Cowell's personal muzak machine, rather than attacking particular music labels as such.

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Smedley
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:51 PM

Apparently the RATM track is on the same label as the X Factor single.

So just how anti-the-system is that ??

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:50 PM

WaV, what *modern* English musical artists, who write their own songs - would you include in our English culture?

Subject: RE: Rage Against the X-Factor
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:45 PM

From the bits I've seen on the news, it's really the A-factor - English trying to be American/performing aspects of American culture instead of their own.

Subject: Rage Against the X-Factor [UK]
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:39 PM

I thought this seemed quite funny! Plus 'Killing in the Name Of', has always been one of the best "I'm really angry at the system and stuff" tracks going.

A couple of music fans fed up with the way the winner of the X-Factor predictably gets Xmas No'1 spot each year, set up a Facebook account to encourage others to buck the trend by mass purchasing Rage Against the Machine's classic anti-establishment track 'Killing in the Name'
The campaign has since sparked a burgeoning wave of interest and support across the internet. Simon Cowell is said to be unimpressed.

Independent article about da peoples internet campaign to beat X-Factor in Xmas No'1 battle: Fuck You, I Won't Buy What You Sell Me!

And here's the original track Killing in the Name