Yeah, this will perk up the Christmas playlist in the UK. For four years running, the #1 song on the Christmas charts has been performed by that year’s winner on The X Factor (think American Idol, complete with Simon Cowell). But this year the competition was skewed by Rage Against The Machine, a band whose entire career consists of a soundtrack for people who sat all the way through Fight Club and still thought Tyler Durden was cool. RATM decided their old chestnut “Killing in the Name” (first performed at roughly the same time Joe McElderry—this year’s X Factor winner—was born) was more suitable holiday listening. This wasn’t just a prank, mind you. This was serious:

Make no mistake about it, this was a political act! This was an entire nation delivering a stinging slap of rejection to the whole notion of pre-fabricated pop ruling the charts. And Rage’s victory over The X Factor was an act of God.

Sure enough, RATM’s numerous Facebook and Twitter fans did what the band told them. They went out and bought 500,000 copies of the 19-year-old song whose tagline is “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.” Ideally, any story involving Simon Cowell, Rage Against The Machine, and The X Factor would have no winners. But this one does—Sony Music Entertainment, the corporate owner of Syco Music (Cowell’s label) and Epic (Rage Against the Machine’s corporate master). So once again the machine wins. Have yourselves a merry little Christmas, folks.*

*This Christmas message brought to you by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.