An open letter to Whoever Winds Up Organising This Year’s “Rage Against The X-Factor” Campaign

Dear loose confederacy of internet protestors,

You did good last year. You managed to bring to a stop The X-Factor’s streak of inane UK Christmas Number Ones. I applaud you for that. But next year could you… I don’t know… maybe pick a different song?

It’s not that I don’t appreciate your effort, and it’s not that I don’t like Rage Against The Machine (I don’t, but that’s besides the point), but it seems to me that you could use this as an opportunity to get an independent artist into the UK chart. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to discover that the Christmas #1 was Jonathan Coulton? Or Dan Bull? In fact “Thistopia” would make a perfect candidate for this year’s campaign. And it’s available to buy on iTunes. Perfect!

It also amuses me that you were given the opportunity to send an anti-X-Factor message a couple of years ago when Malcolm Middleton released “We’re All Going To Die”, but I guess The X-Factor wasn’t such as nuisance then. For some reason.

You’ve proven you have some kind of phenomenal cosmic power. That’s great. But maybe you could use it to send a message not just to The X-Factor but to the music industry as a whole. And the best way to do that is to throw your support behind an independent artist.

Think about it.

Kind regards,
Ben Paddon