[SYRFox]

Originally Posted by Derek

They are signed to the same label as the X Factor winner, so the same fatcats will win anyway regardless. Not to mention that RATM are terrible! They rapped about fucking the system and to take down big business yet they are on Sony, one of the 4 major labels? That's hypocritical right there.

Oh and they were terrible songwriters. "But dude, the guitarist was so innovative!" Wow, he could make some funny noises with his guitar that people probably thought up before him and thought, "heh kind of amusing eh?" He's a terrible guitarist. Horrible. People seem to think the band are standing up for the little man when really they are probably all millionaires who couldn't give a fuck if we died or not.

And then there's people who say they're innovative because they combined rock and rap. OH MY, WOW! Rock... AND rap? You're joking! Someone better ring up Run-DMC, Public Enemy/Anthrax and the Beastie Boys about this wonderful genre RATM have originally conceived and fine crafted.

Besides, if it gets to number one then what's the point? What are they trying to prove? Who will it convert? Fuck this "campaign".

adam, stop hacking Derek's account

this said, i don't really give a fuck about ratm so i don't even know why i entered this thread

[Glice]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

RATM brings up an interesting paradox, when you have a revolutionary message that needs to get to the masses, how do you avoid mass marketization, which is the inevitable result of mass distribution of anything? I mean, I think we can all agree that RATM didn't start out as some sell-out band, before they were signed that were just another pissed off political punk band like a hundred other punk bands in my collection.. but like Bob Marley that shit got big, and unlike Bob Marley those fuckers let it get to their heads and sold-out.

The thing is, it's not a revolutionary message. Never has been, never will be. This is why RATM gall with me - the music isn't radical, the message isn't radical, the label is a major, none of them are fat or particularly ugly, they still use Zildijian and Fender. The X-factor winner is actually significantly less entrenched in the shit of the 'system', and RATM are meant to represent some sort of rebellion? I can understand for some teenagers my age, RATM were seminal. This is 2009, and it genuinely pains me to see grown adults regurgitating the same pathetic rhetoric that's forgiveable if you're a hormonal teen but genuinely, and politically, criminal from a grown adult.

EDIT: I meant 'people my age who were teenagers when RATM were first doing the rounds, which isn't entirely clear above.

[Keeping It Simple]

A lot of people will be buying the X-Factor single just to piss off the retards behind the RATM campaign.

[akprodr]

All I will say is: I'm glad that there is a band called Rage Against the Latrine

[The Earl Of Slander]

Well I've never been a RATM fan, but Killing In The Name is a single that I personally like quite a bit, politics be damned. Also, living in the UK, the X Factor = Christmas Number One thing is obscene to me, especially since the fucking EVIL thing they did last year (which I can't even refer to by name), so I bought a copy as a token rebellion against them, and a personal protest about last year, for what (very little I know) it's worth. I don't think I'm changing the world, or RATM are powerful revolutionaries instead of just some band, but fuck it, I LIKE THE TRACK, and it's better than the shit factor. I don't feel the need to defend the campaign any further than that.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Glice

The thing is, it's not a revolutionary message. Never has been, never will be. This is why RATM gall with me - the music isn't radical, the message isn't radical

come off it Glice now you are just being silly.. it is plainly obvious from the lyrical content that RATM was a radical and revolutionary band. At least from the s/t release and also Battle For Los Angeles..

Did RATM sell out? completely.

Was RATM lyrics revolutionary? obviously..

RATM lyrics would sound radical even to a jihadist!

[Derek]

Glice 4 president

[Derek]

Originally Posted by SYRFox

adam, stop hacking Derek's account

this said, i don't really give a fuck about ratm so i don't even know why i entered this thread

I didn't think that post was very atsonicpark-ish. I pretty much recited verbatim what I said to a friend about the subject several minutes before.

[Glice]

It's just occurred to me that there has never been a decent Christmas number one. In fact, everything that's ever been Christmas number one in the UK (in my lifetime at least) has been the sort of shit that no-one, in a year's time, would argue wasn't shit. So, basically, should RATM win, they'll join the ranks of Mr Blobby as passing the only solid gold, empirical yardstick of utter shitness. That makes me feel a bit happier about the whole sorry affair.

IT'S NOT EVEN A FUCKING CHRISTMAS SONG.

[Glice]

Oh, bollocks.

Ok, so the exemption to the above is the Pet Shop Boys and Girls Aloud.

[Glice]

And Rolf Harris.

[Glice]

And Danny Williams.

[Glice]

And Emile Ford & the Checkmates.

Bollocks, that went badly.

[ni'k]

if santa existed i'd hunt him down and kill him

[ni'k]

i'd take over bbc studios on december 25th and execute him live on air

[The Earl Of Slander]

And John Lennon maybe?

[The Earl Of Slander]

And The Pogues!

[ni'k]

and then me and my al qaeda buddies would take over his north pole base as a terrorist training camp, we'd hijack his sleigh, gift wrap suicide bombers and throw them down people's chimneys

[pbradley]

I just learned about this maybe ten minutes ago. In fact, I thought this thread was comparing RATM to the earlier funk rap rock band (which, now after looking it up, is Urban Dance Squad). Subsequently, I ignored it.

Though I pal around with a few East LA ex-socialist liberals, this whole UK thing confuses me for pretty much the reasons listed earlier in the thread. Oh well, popular music controversy will always center on a popular discourse where revolution is not revolutionary and controversy is not controversial, etc.

[ni'k]

rage are the machine