Rage against the X Factor?

So I see the campaign for Christmas No 1 is once again hotting up with campaigns for alternatives to Simon Cowell's money machine being promoted all over the internet.

Hurrah for alternative music and competition!

But hold on. Reading this piece in The Grauniad alerts me that this supposed alternative anti-establishment-and-mainstream-music group is backed by none other than Sony Music.

Epic Records is an American record label. It is a premier subsidiary label of Sony Music Entertainment. The label was founded in 1953 as a jazz label, but was eventually expanded to several genres of music. The label itself manages several imprints as well.

Remember last year when we were all supposed to buy the cover of 'Hallelujah' which Jeff Buckley did:

The release of Burke's cover created interest in the previous versions of the song, including a Buckley fan campaign to take Buckley's cover to the top of the Christmas chart in order to deny Burke the top spot.The campaign was fuelled by Jeff Buckley fans' dislike of The X Factor's commercialism and the song's arrangement, as well as a desire by this contingent to introduce younger music fans to Buckley's version

At the same time the original by Leonard Cohen was also released although it only reached No 36 in the charts compared to No 1's for Burke and No. 2 for Buckley.

But the real winner of the day was, of course, Simon Cowell, who owns the rights to all three versions.
I'm not attacking Simon Cowell for being smart by any means. Well done the man for being able to read the minds of the public and the media so well.

I'm just saying that if I worked in the PR department for these record labels that one of the first things I'd do is secretly promote some huge battle between two records in order that the company I worked for raked in the cash regardless of who got to the top spot this festive season.

I personally have decided to download the Christmas Single by The Soldiers because it's not owned by Sony and I know the guys who sing it.

So if you really want to rage against anything, here's a handy link for you.