娱乐英语新闻:Facebook helps Rage top UK charts

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" has become Britain's 2009 Christmas No. 1 after being pushed to the top of the charts with the help of a Facebook campaign.

    "The Climb", a song performed by Joe McElderry, the winner of British talent show X Factor, had looked set to take the No. 1 spot until a husband and wife team from Essex in England set up a Facebook campaign to root for the Rage Against the Machine song. The online fan campaign to push the Rage song to the top of the charts was described as "one of the biggest shocks in chart history" by BBC News entertainment reporter Colin Paterson.

    "The Climb" is a feel-good anthem about overcoming adversity, while "Killing in the Name" is a distinctly angry tirade by a band known for its protest songs that contains the repeated line "F*** you, I won't do what you tell me." Its win is considered a major upset in the competition for the top song of Christmas week, a battle that Britons take very seriously. "Killing in the Name", first released in 1992, sold 500,000 downloads, compared to 450,000 for "The Climb".

    "Killing in the Name" has been described as "a howling, expletive-driven tirade against the ills of American society." The song repeats six lines of lyrics that focus on racism in security agencies with the refrain, "Some of those who work forces, are the same who burn crosses," an allusion to cross-burning by the Ku Klux Klan. The song lyrics reference the allegation that some members of U.S. police forces are members of the Ku Klux Klanorganization, whose symbol is the burning cross. The BBC News website refers to it as railing against "the military-industrial complex, justifying killing for the benefit of, as the song puts it, the chosen whites."

    "The specifics of the song have to do with race and race relations and a racist police department in the United States and how sometimes the biggest racist thugs are the ones in office and not necessarily the ones wielding batons on the street corners," says guitarist Tom Morello, "But the premise of the song, that still resonates 17 years after its initial release, is the spirit of resistance to authority."

    For the past four years, a song from Simon Cowell's talent show X Factor has achieved the No. 1 spot on Christmas week. Winners have include Alexandra Burke singing "Hallelujah" and Leon Jackson singing "When You Believe". But this year Jon and Tracy Morter set out to stop the X Factor juggernaut in early December with their Facebook campaign.

    "We really love music and remember when we were young the charts were really exciting," Tracy Morter told BBC. "We just thought, wouldn't it be funny if that song [Killing in the Name] got to Number 1? It took something really strong and forceful to get people behind it." More than 1.5 million people signed onto the Facebook campaign, a huge grassroots movement motivated mainly by dislike for the dominance of X Factor on the British entertainment scene.

    It is the second year the Morters have attempted to skew the Christmas hit list. Last year they promoted Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" against X Factor winner Burke. The battle between Rage Against the Machine and McElderry drew an unusual amount of attention to the British charts this year, with five million tuning in to hear the chart results on Sunday.

    Meanwhile Zack de la Rocha from the Los Angeles-based Rage Against the Machine promised a British concert in 2010 to celebrate the win. "We are very, very ecstatic about being Number 1," he told BBC, expressing admiration for the "incredible grassroots campaign." As for 18 year old McElderry, he said he didn't take the campaign against him personally. He thanked fans who bought his single and said success on X Factor was already more than he had expected.