Christmas Number One Conspiracy Theories Upset Tom Morello

Posted by Aaron Mayagoitia on 12.23.2009

Rage Against the Machine guitarist calls them "the most ridiculous thing!"

Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello has denied the band's song "Killing in the Name" was part of a conspiracy to get two Sony songs into the UK charts.

"Killing in the Name" and X Factor winner Joe McElderry's "The Climb" were both released by the major label and battled for the UK's 2009 Christmas Number One spot.

This has made some suggest that the online campaign put together by Jon and Tracy Morter was actually a marketing ploy thought up by Sony Records to dominate the chart.

However, Tom Morello told NME when interviewed: "That's the most ridiculous thing! I couldn't even get a return email from Sony UK," he laughed when the conspiracy was put to him. "I was like, 'Are we still on your label? Something's happening over there' and nobody hit me back."

Morello instead praised the campaign. "It was tremendous, it was an incredible campaign to make a hard-hitting political song Number One with a budget of zero, and it outmatched this enormous machinery. Normally the panel stands in judgement of the contestants, but this week the whole UK stood in judgement of a reality TV game show controlling a nation's musical identity and The X Factor didn't make the cut," he declared.

"Ordinary people, when they band together in solidarity, can do extraordinary things. Last night I was reading the wall comments on the Facebook page and one young man's comment really struck me. He said, 'It's almost like we can actually change the world if we stick together'. Now imagine that kind of revelation coming from something that has to do with the UK Christmas charts. You just never know where the spark is going to come from, but we were really honoured to be part of the greatest chart upset in the history of the UK."

Credit: NME