Music

Cage Against The Machine: '4'33"'

Released on Monday, Dec 13 2010

Published Thursday, Dec 16 2010, 13:10 GMT | By Mayer Nissim | 53 comments

After the successful Facebook-driven campaign to get Rage Against The Machine's sweary classic 'Killing In The Name' to the top of the charts last Christmas, it was inevitable that countless others would attempt to follow that lead. Heading the charge is the annoying kitschification of Trashmen's wonderful 'Surfin' Bird', but there's also the more considered statement of this mass-collaboration on John Cage's conceptual masterpiece '4'33"'. Appearing on this take are a rag-tag bunch including Orbital, Madness, Anne Pigalle, The Kooks, Billy Bragg, Jon McLure and Imogen Heap, though Pete Doherty is (in)conspicuous by his absence.

The beauty of '4'33"' is that it isn't the sound of silence. The three-movement piece is different in every performance, as it captures the ambient noise of our surroundings. Appropriated here as a statement against the commercial transformation of music from a vital soundtrack of life to nothing more than empty muzak, it's a much more fitting protest than Rage's track. Of course, last year's campaign was a complete success in many ways. It put some fun back into the Christmas No.1 chase, it forced Simon Cowell to actually try with this year's winner's single(s) and it got some swearing on the radio. Furthermore, with The X Factor's scheduling changing, this might be the last time such a protest is needed. What it won't be though is the last net-based campaign to thrust unlikely songs into the charts, and there's a definite risk that by the time the mince pies are done, this form of protest will have become as frustratingly ubiquitous as the talent show it seeks to usurp.