Rage Against The Machine get UK Christmas number one with 500k download sales
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By jeepers, they did it! Rage Against The Machine are the UK’s Christmas number one track with ‘Killing In The Name Of’, which sold more than 500,000 copies this week to beat X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s ‘The Climb’, which sold 450,000. The Facebook-fuelled campaign to send RATM to the top of the chart and give X Factor boss Simon Cowell a bloody nose worked like a charm.
Well, that and the fact that much of the UK has been covered in snow for the past couple of days, which may have dented sales of the physical CD single of Joe’s song. But that’s the really significant thing about this chart race from Music Ally’s point of view: Those 500,000+ sales of the RATM song were entirely downloads, since there was no physical re-release of the track.
It’s the biggest one-week download sales total in UK chart history, according to the Official Charts Company. The OCC also reveals the digital surge that secured top spot for Killing In The Name Of: On Friday morning it was just 9,000 copies ahead of McElderry’s song, but it went on to sell 200,000 copies on Friday and Saturday.
That surge was also confirmed today by 7digital CEO Ben Drury, who tweeted this afternoon that “Judging by our sales (www.7digital.com) and our market share, RATM could have sold 100,000 copies yesterday alone! Power to the people”.
Retailers like 7digital are the big winners this week (besides label Sony Music Entertainment, of course, which handles both songs). For tens if not hundreds of thousands of UK music fans, the chart battle and Facebook campaign have provided an incentive to make legal purchases of digital music – and shop around in the process too to find the best prices. Will they carry on buying when there’s not a Cowell-baiting campaign to spur them? That remains to be seen in 2010.
The OCC sent out the press release revealing the chart placings at 2.40pm today, embargoed until 7pm. However, news swiftly leaked out, with Twitter full of non-journalists gleefully revealing RATM’s achievement.
What happens now? Expect more spectacularly humourless quotes from Simon Cowell on how mean fans have destroyed Joe’s dream, and equally humourless blathering from the other side of the battle about striking blows for ‘real’ music and suchlike. Meanwhile, RATM have promised a celebratory free gig in the UK if they reached top spot, while the BBC will be dusting down a TV-friendly version of the song’s video for Christmas Top Of The Pops…
Tags: joe mcelderry, occ, rage against the machine, ratm, simon cowell, x factor
December 20th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I can’t believe we did it. So many people did not know about the rage campaign. I texted half of my phone book this week, asking them if they ‘bought rage’ yet, with the twitter tag #ratm4xmas, only 2 or 3 knew what I was talking about. This was when I started to doubt, ‘we’ could do and protest against xfactor supremacy. Well done rage, well done the starters of this combat, fantastic tune to rally against. What a bloody shame though england is so obsessed with swearing and did a tame version for the radio.
December 20th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stuart Dredge and Tommy Whalen, Matt. Matt said: Brilliant – RATM beat that cretin McElderry – http://bit.ly/7XPaxu [...]
December 20th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Love it, I downloaded it yesterday from my mobile phone company website but it took me a while to find it as they were pushng the X Factor song pretty hard. I dont mind the boy that won it and actualy think he has a nice voice but really pig sick of the X FActor it is a freak show with whoever has the biggest sob story and the best screamer that usualy wins.
December 20th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
[...] Via Music Ally [...]
December 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
[...] Edwin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptRetailers like 7digital are the big winners this week (besides label Sony Music Entertainment, of course, which handles both songs). For tens if not hundreds of thousands of UK music fans, the chart battle and Facebook campaign have … [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 9:49 am
[...] Music Ally | Blog Archive » Rage Against The Machine get UK … [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
We had many people with a lot of relevant skills and experience working long hours at this. Thats part of the story.. this didn’t just happen because people clicked to join the group and then bought the track. There was a highly professional campaign run here without a chain of command, funding or any kind of management structure. Many people contributed to this on so many levels and appealed to so many different niches.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
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December 21st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Although I have nothing personal against RATM, I still feel that the campaign to get them to No 1, is just as cynical and manipulative as anything that Simon Cowell and the X Factor have done.
I find it quite boring to constantly hear how show’s like the X Factor are preventing so called ‘proper’ bands from achieving success! This is complete rubbish!
Too many people seem incapable of liking their own music for themselves. Instead they have to constantly moan and complain about the state of the charts and programmes like X Factor!
In many ways RATM’s victory is a victory for musical snobbery and for people who constantly proclaim that they have superior music tastes to the general masses.
In a few months time, everyone will have forgotten about this victory and start the complaining cycle all over again about how poor the charts are and reality music shows like X Factor.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:24 pm
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACE AND THESE PIMPS NEED TO BE EXPOSED FOR WHAT THEY ARE.
CLOSE DOWN YOUR BROTHEL SIMON, WE ARE ON TO YOU BIG TIME!
I went to see a Curtis Stigers Jazz Quartet Concert at Newcastle City Hall last year, as we all know or should know, these musicians are among the best in the world and Curtis himself in the league of the very eminent among us as a skilled Composer, Musician and Performer. Needless to say the show was fantastic but sadly there was only about Six Hundred people in the hall, the upstairs closed and the downstairs only half full. We could blame many factors, (excuse the pun), but what ate a huge chunk out of my heart was whilst standing in the foyer during the interval, the walls were adorned with posters of one of these pop idol / xfactor kids having completely sold out his tour and with most venues having to put on a second night due to the huge demand. What is so sickening, the useless twats who bought tickets to see this “one song sung amateur” had only ever seen him perform a couple of ‘one verse one chorus’ audition songs on TV, and he didn’t even get through to the finals apparently. God help us please.
It takes my mind back to an Art Garfunkel interview I saw many years ago at one of these shit pretentious awards ceremonies where all these young (only ever sung 2 song twats) were winning all these awards as the best this and the best that. He responded by saying “this is a sad time for music”. I believe it is getting worse.
WELL DONE RAGE, WHO IS NEXT, I AND MANY MILLIONS ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU?
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 am
From a rage fan in the us spot on UK you did! Hell ya this the shit thanks!
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
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December 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
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