Joe McElderry may be our only hope

No matter how puppy-dog the eyes of Joe McElderry I wasn't planning to buy the X Factor single, which I didn't even particularly like all those months ago when it was a Miley Cyrus single. However, I have bought it, simply in the hope that I can help keep bloody Rage Against the Machine off the Christmas no. 1 spot. I really really hate Rage Against the Machine; they're a symbol of all the worst tendencies of teenagerhood. Back when I was a youth I remember they had an album cover/t-shirt with a picture of a Tibetan monk setting himself on fire. This used to annoy me hugely; you really can't put someone killing themselves gruesomely in protest against genuine political persecution on a cheap t-shirt and use it to sell music to self-dramatising self-satisfied suburban indie boys as if this made them rebels too, or at least you shouldn't be allowed to, or at least the idiots who wear the thing ought to take a deep breath and get some sort of perspective. It's like when Kula Shaker started wearing swastikas. Idiots.

Not to mention that the Rage Against the Machine thing is all being driven by Facebook, which I also hate. Although it is quite interesting to follow, from the point of view of one who doesn't need to worry about it, the attempts of Facebook to monetise by selling information, and the protests of the Facebookees, and the reactions of Facebook as it withdraws part of what it has just done or puts some small opt-out tick-box somewhere buried in the site's settings. (There are links to info about it from this page: "Is this Facebook's 'Microsoft Moment?'".)

If you too hate 80s rock and Facebook then you could join my 'campaign' and download the Joe McElderry single. It's less than a quid and it's not like you have to listen to it -- I'm certainly not going to. In the meantime here is some different music: