How long does it take to make an annual tradition? The idea of fixing the Christmas No 1 via Facebook is only three years old, but already feels cosy. In fact, to some of those trying to send a song to the top of the charts, it's a given that Rage Against the Machine scored but the first of many such victories. "It seems obvious that a similar Facebook-inspired campaign will triumph again," writes the webmaster of a Surfin' Bird for No 1 group. It seems even more obvious that it won't, since every fanbase with a grudge against The Man is massing their forces separately and dissension is rife. The Children of Bodom group doesn't even mention Simon Cowell: "Better than Rage, anyway," it huffs. Splitters!
To have any point, this kind of campaign needs to do two things. It should still seem like a clever idea months after you sign up, and it should be funny even if it completely fails to top the charts. The only effort this year with a hope of ticking these boxes is Cage Against the Machine, whose candidate for Christmas No 1 is a recording of John Cage's 4'33". This notorious "silent composition" from 1952 will "make Simon Cowell's head explode", promise the organisers. The piece is already a flypaper for all kinds of official foolishness: one recording on YouTube has had its audio disabled for copyright infringement.
The group's activity so far is predictably jocular – "I'm humming it already," writes one member. Others ask after remixes. It's the social media equivalent of a Radio 4 panel show, and I wonder if that mildly donnish atmosphere would dissipate if the campaign got the kind of momentum that turned the Rage effort from a gag into a cause. You get the impression most of the 15,000 Cage fans so far care as much about showing that they get the joke as any eventual result. And why not – it's a good joke: the well-known horror radio presenters have for "dead air" makes the idea of four blank minutes anywhere in the chart a ticklish prospect.
I found the group particularly appealing because I was in the audience for a performance of Cage's piece earlier this year. In fact, I was the audience: one friend performed the piece, another recorded it, and I listened. I'd wanted to hear 4'33" for ages – one of the peculiarities of it is that statements like that invite derision, but it's true. And I wasn't disappointed: as in a long ceremonial silence you become aware of the tiniest sounds, which is part of the point. Cage saw the piece as an experiment in interpenetration: letting chance sounds affect – and in this case overwhelm – what the composer intends. The performance ended just when I'd stopped expecting it to. Afterwards, with those 273 seconds sealed off as a recording, time seemed to race: so many sounds just getting lost. The moment passed and we went to the pub.
Researching 4'33" later I found that we'd got the piece wrong – it was composed as three separate movements, and Cage was explicit that it be presented as such. He took five years between his conceptualising the idea and actually writing it – he knew 4'33" would be seen as a joke or a stunt and deliberately took as much effort over it as possible in order to prevent that interpretation. That was surely in vain: the piece reflects preconceptions. If you come to it as art, or a joke, or a stunt then everything new you find out about it will point in that direction.
So would Cage have disapproved of the Facebook campaign? I'm not so sure. You could try an elaborate justification along the lines of social media events interpenetrating the established order, but it's easier just to look at why the piece is 4'33" long. According to Cage historian Larry Solomon, the original conception of the piece was as a response to canned music, and he knew it would be roughly four and a half minutes long, since that was the average Muzak song length. So while he might raise his eyebrows at the campaign's tone, stopping Cowell is as true a use of 4'33" as any.
Tom Ewing @'The Guardian'
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