Christmas just got good

Some very clever people are saying some very stupid things about Rage Against The Machine claiming the Christmas No.1 slot. Some stupid people too, of course, but we aren't worried about them. Most of these comments centre around the supposed irony of asking people to download a song that includes the lyric fuck you I won't do what you tell me. Oh! You've got us all bang to rights there, haven't you? You're dead right and we should all cry ourselves to sleep with shame tonight.

Or, perhaps, you should go back and locate the point that you missed because you were looking the wrong way.

If you do something without really thinking about it just because someone tells you to, you're a sheep. Downloading a piece of music as part of a protest cannot possibly fall into that category. Nobody who downloaded KITN did it without realising what they were doing. No one is now thinking 'Gosh, I was coerced into buying a track that I don't even like! They must have slipped something into my cherryade! Please forgive me Joe, you're such a nice lad and I've ruined your life!' No: people bought it because they believed in seeing real music triumph over cynicism; a song about corruption and racism triumph over a song written to help propel the Hannah Montana commercial juggernaut and appropriated by the Simon Cowell commercial juggernaut. I don't think for a minute that charity was a factor in people's decision making, but that Shelter have also benefitted is a huge bonus.

Sadly, though, some people think it's cooler to just condemn the whole thing as petty, hypocritical, cruel, vindictive or just plain pointless. Come on, think. It's none of these things. It's a huge showing of collective sanity that is very rarely seen from the British public.

Not that it wasn't funny as hell. I laughed out loud when Zack de la Rocha said: "We would like to congratulate Joe and Simon on having the number two single for the Christmas chart!"