BBC News’ Entertainment Reporter is calling it “simply one of the biggest shocks in chart history”. But how did ‘Killing in the Name’, a 1992 tune by US rock band Rage Against the Machine, hit the top of this year’s UK Christmas Top 40? After all, it’s a position more usually filled with inoffensive sentimentality.
Jon and Tracy Morter are the British couple responsible for encouraging this seismic shift.
“It was one of those little silly ideas that make you laugh in your own house,” Tracy Morter explained. “We really love music and remember when were were young the charts were really exciting. We just thought, wouldn’t it be funny if that song got to number one? It took something really strong and forceful to get people behind it.”
Jon Morter has tried it before: last year he wanted to propel a 20-year old tune by ’80s Brit crooner Rick Astley to the top of Britain’s Christmas music chart. The 2008 X-Factor winner won that battle, and Morter seems astonished that this time his plan has succeeded.
Newsbeat, a daily news show produced for the BBC’s UK youth music station Radio One reported the chart war like this:
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- More from the BBC News website: includes video interviews with Jon Morter, Rage Against the Machine, and the X-Factor winner.
- Radio One’s Newsbeat asks, “Who should be Christmas number one?”
Don’t like the language used by RATM but the heavy rock music is great. However, like it or not, this is certainly a victory for people power. Imagine what we could change if we really put our heads together!
The only chance they had was to have people in the team that knew what they were doing and had a finger on the pulse rather.
They “took their eye off the ball”, underestimated their enemy and paid the price.