Facebook Drive Upends Music Charts

Organizers of Facebook campaigns won one yesterday when it was announced Rage Against the Machine has scored its first number one song in the United Kingdom Sunday. The win comes courtesy of a successful Facebook campaign to land the band’s 1992 song “Killing In The Name Of” as the country’s top Christmas single over the artists on TV/music producer Simon Cowell’s program The X Factor.

The X Factor is a British singing reality show similar to American Idol. The program has generated four consecutive top Christmas singles until this year’s Facebook campaign. Rage Against the Machine has said the band will donate sales from the single to charity and play a free thank-you concert in Great Britain for its fans.

Rage Against the Machine, a political rap-rock group that reunited for a series of concerts around the globe, called the online campaign a protest against commercialization. “The people in the U.K. are tired of being spoon-fed one schmaltzy ballad after another and they want to back their own charts, and we are honored that they have chosen our song to be the rebel anthem to try to topple The X Factor label,” guitarist Tom Morello told BBC Radio 5.

The Facebook campaign gained support from many quarters, including Paul McCartney, who said the campaign would send a message.

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