Essex couple beat The X Factor as Rage Against The Machine claim Christmas No. 1
A campaign by an Essex couple to reclaim the Christmas number one from the X Factor has paid off as Rage Against The Machine claimed the top spot in the festive chart last night.
Jon and Tracy Morter from South Woodham Ferrers started the Facebook campaign Rage Against The X Factor in November, urging people to download the rap metal band's song Killing In The Name from last Sunday to try to prevent Simon Cowell and co dominating the charts again.
Membership of the campaign swelled to nearly one million and as the chart results were totted up it emerged that Rage had sold around 50,000 more copies than X Factor winner Joe McElderry's single The Climb.
"We just wanted to have a different number one to The X Factor because it's been top for the last four years and it has got a bit boring," said Jon.
Simon Cowell initially dubbed the campaign "stupid" and "cynical" but yesterday offered not only congratulations to Jon and Tracy, but also jobs.
The music mogul phoned the Morters when news broke that their campaign had been successful.
"He was very nice, really nice to talk to," Jon told The Daily Mirror.
"We had a little chat about music and just things in general really.
"He was lovely and he wished us well and he also said it was probably the best Christmas number one race that he has been involved with."
The expletive ridden Killing In The Name is an unlikely Christmas number one. An anti-establishment rant, it contains 15 uses of the f** word but still managed to sell 502,672 copies last week compared to McElderry's 450,838.
Following Jon and Tracy's successful campaign, Cowell has now offered them jobs.
"I am genuinely impressed by the campaign they have run. It has been a good campaign with no dirty tricks and without any funding. They have been passionate and worked hard," said Cowell.
"I offered them jobs at my record company. It could be in marketing or perhaps even running the company.
"This is their first attempt at putting out a record and they got a Christmas number one so they have not done badly at all.
"I wanted them to come and work for me. I was deadly serious but they haven't taken me up on the offer," Cowell added.
2 Comments
by Jon Morter, South Woodham Ferrers
Tuesday, February 09 2010, 2:10PM
“Sadly Gary has left a very ill-informed comment and not done his research before posting.
Cowell makes NOTHING from the track as RATM are signed to Epic records, not Cowell's SyCo records...yes they are both subsidiary to Sony, that's where it ends. Secondly, we turned down Cowell's offer...he would've seen that by checking various press releases on the subject...and lastly I do not have a daughter”
by Gary, Maldon
Monday, December 21 2009, 6:38PM
“Very festive, I wonder if they got a copy for their young daughter?
And of course Simon Cowell offered them a job, they made Him even more money as He gets royalties from BOTH songs.”