Will the sound of silence beat X Factor to No 1?

By Patrick McLennan
( What's on TV )
published

Will the sound of silence beat X Factor to No 1?
Will the sound of silence beat X Factor to No 1? (Image credit: AP/Press Association Images)

A campaign to get a recording of four and a half minutes of silence to top the charts this Christmas may scupper the chances of an X Factor Christmas No 1. Last year an internet campaign saw Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name beat 2009 X Factor winner Joe McElderry's song The Climb to the Christmas No 1. Now almost 30,000 people have signed up on Facebook to back Cage Against The Machine, which aims to put avant-garde composer John Cage's silent work 4'33" at the top spot. The winner of this year's X Factor is expected to be a strong contender to top the charts this Christmas. A website, set up to promote the idea, calls on music fans to repeat last year's success 'with 4 minutes and 33 seconds of avant garde silence' and make December 25 'a silent night'. Cage composed his work in 1952 when he asked musicians to not touch their instruments for four minutes and 33 seconds.

Patrick McLennan
Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.