Rage against the X-Factor

Seasons greetings everyone! I hope everyone is well and staying wrapped up warm.

Apologies to anyone this winds up, but I would like to write a little bit about ‘Rage against the X-Factor’, a facebook group which can be found here: http://bit.ly/inthename

If the X-Factor single goes to Number one this week, Cowell’s monster will have dominated the Christmas charts for half a decade. Rage against the X-Factor is a means for those of us who shudder at this prospect to show that we have had enough. The idea is for everyone to go on line this week and buy ‘Killing in the name’ by rage against the machine. Some of RATM’s lyrics explain pretty well how I feel about X-Factor;
“The movie ran through me
The glamour subdued me
The tabloid untied me
I'm empty please fill me”
Basically, it is substance-less mollifying tabloid tripe as far as I am concerned. I have nothing against those who enjoy X-Factor watching and taking part, but there are a considerable number of Brits who are sick of having it pushed into our faces every Christmas in the form of the Christmas number one single. That is why this group exists. If you feel anything like I do about this please join, tell your friends about this group and most importantly please BUY ‘KILLING IN THE NAME’ THIS WEEK!

A lot of people have made arguments against Rage against the X-Factor, and I would like to talk about a few of them.

1. “Sony BMG” – RATM’s record label Epic Records and the X-Factor label Syco are both subsidiaries of Sony BMG, so some people argue “The money is going to the same place anyway”

This is not an anti-capitalist protest, nor is it an anti-record label protest. If I boycotted Sony BMG I would miss out on a hell of a lot of great music. This is simply about being sick of the X-Factor single being number one every year, and the fact that everyone accepts it as a matter of course. (by the way for those of you who are on a personal hate campaign against Cowell; seeing as the two subsidiaries are unaffiliated companies none of the profits of ‘Killing in the name’ will end up in Cowell’s pockets)

2. “You’re all sheep!” – a few pedants have pointed out that we are all clubbing together and encouraging each other to buy a single made famous by the line “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” thereby apparently doing exactly what we are arguing against; conforming.

This is disingenuous. No one is forcing anyone to buy the single; we have simply settled on it as a song that everyone can choose to get behind if they want to use the democratic nature of the charts to register their discontent. It is the insidious nature of the X-Factor program, the way that it builds up to a climax just before the Christmas single that lets it exercise control over the British public. “Killing in the name” is a way to send a stark message to Cowell and the X-Factor that there are over half a million of us who are not so easily manipulated.

3. “It can’t be done”

Oh yes it can. Last year Alexander Burke’s Christmas Number one sold 576,000 copies. At the point of writing, Rage against the X-Factor had 722,499 members. It absolutely can be done. Simon Cowell Has commented on the group, accusing us of ‘spoiling the party’ for the X-Factor winner. Such arrogance! As if winning the X-Factor gives his singer the right to a Christmas number one. The only thing that gives the right to a Christmas number one is selling the most singles that week. It’s time for us to remind him where the power is.

4. “It’s not very Christmassy is it?”

This one really depends on what you get out of Christmas. I personally am not at all religious, so Christmas does not do anything for me spiritually. Nor am I particularly materialist, so the idea of a tacky Christmas tree and presents as far as the eye can see does not really get me going either. One part of Christmas I can wholeheartedly go for is the idea of “Goodwill to all mankind”. Bearing that in mind, how cool would it be if this year, instead of something about Santa Clause and Mulled wine, the British public chose a song that protested against racism in the police forces? I think it would be very cool indeed.

5. “You should buy a charity single or an independent single instead”

This is a very manipulative argument indeed. The music you choose should never be a moral choice. If I wanted to make chips and went to the supermarket to buy potatoes, if I then found that half the profits on all turnips went to charity, would I then be morally obliged to make turnip chips instead? The fact is if you are that interested in giving to charity you should not buy a single at all but should give the whole price to a charity instead. As for the idea of buying an independent single; I am all for supporting small record labels, but that is an argument for a different day. As I have said before this campaign is not a war on pop music or on big record labels; it is simply a chance for us to tell Cowell and his bloated hit machine; “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me.”

So those of you that feel so inclined, please join me in a good old mosh for freedom this Christmas!

Did you miss me?

I have not written for a while, again. The excuse this time, for anyone who is still listening, is that I went down to my dad’s house in the countryside for a few days. They do not have any computers or internets there. They did have some witches, but they all got burned. I told my dad he should get broadband, but he said I should not mention it again, because it was ‘witch talk’, and I might get burned.

It was nice to get out of the smoke for a while, and it was good to spend some time resting and sorting my head out, and seeing my dad, in the run up to my now imminent emigration to t3H |\|1p|>()n. It was definitely good to have some proper ‘down time’ – including my dad’s best fry-ups and the local ale festival - before I have to start getting on with leaving my life behind…

I may have been severed from the internet, but I was still connected where it counts: computer games. First and foremost, my little brother had left his Wii over at my dad’s. Although I had already played on it, this was my first opportunity to play at length, and to really get to grips with the controllers. My eyes skidded over the copy of Resi 4; irrespective of how great the new control system may or may not be, I just did not have the energy to play the blasted game a third time. At the risk of sounding like a computer game Nazi, I will admit that the flippancy of Wii sports has never really appealed to me. I did fancy a proper go at Zelda: The Twilight Princess, but my save file had disappeared in my absence. The game that drew me in and kept me playing into impractical hours of the night was a flawed beauty; Red Steel.

Now I am ashamed to admit that the promise of Yakuza based action is guaranteed to have me shaking with violent intrigue, and when I first played on the Wii, this was the game that got me excited. It was a cool, stylistic FPS with (admittedly gimmicky) sword fights, and I loved it from the start. However playing it, as I initially did, for only a short time meant that I had no time to properly familiarise myself with the undeniably difficult mechanic of simultaneous movement and aiming on the foreign (to me) Wiimote. As a result, I went away feeling that Red Steel was something of a lost opportunity.

Having finally spent a respectable amount of time learning the ropes, I learned a new love for the game. Now my little yakaza fetish probably made the experience more exhilarating for me, but I can not tell you how fucking good it felt to charge around suspicious Japanese hotels and clubs brandishing guns and swords. Literally brandishing them. I surprised myself by deciding that the controls make a real difference.

Another part of the game’s strange charm is that it feels anachronistically stunted. Made by the French company Ubisoft, it displays the fruit of the strange little cultural love-in between the European mainland and Japan (everyone in Europe except the British seem to have fond memories of Fist of the North Star and Sailor Moon) and the game is another charmingly clumsy account of orientalist fantasy. It reminds me of the Samurai and Ninja games I used to play in the park as a child, before I grew out of it and… started a degree in Japanese? Oh, fuck!

You play a typically passively silent and unseen westerner who, get this, is going out with the daughter of a yakaza boss! Come on, who has not had that daydream? Just me? I’ll shut up. Predictably, it all goes awry, and rival gangsters kidnap your girlfriend and her dad, leaving just you, an army of malefactors waiting to be dispatched, and some guns. No, lots of guns. And really the tone does not change from there on out. Technically, everything about the game is a little out dated and on the cheesy side: graphics, story, even the gameplay feels as if nothing had changed since goldeneye. Yet this is exactly what adds up to make the game feel so nostalgically pleasing. It entices you to allow yourself to return to the drama and imagination of older times. And did I mention you can shoot loads of people and have sword fights? Good.

Also, I would like to announce a new addition to the blog! Down towards the bottom of the panel on the right, you will find a streaming radio player. It only plays the traditional Japanese folk-blues genre, Enka. It is a brilliant genre, and a yakuza favorite.

Osu!

I gotta believe!!!

I'm no PSP lover, but this shouldn't be missed. To celebrate the psp release of Parappa the Rapper, a certain 'psp fanboy' blog that I won't link to has provided eight tracks from the soundtrack for download. They're not songs that I would recognise, becuase I can't play the new game until they release it on a proper console. However, Parappa tunes are always choice, so here they are.