This little gem came across on a mailing list I subscribe to: a group of British musicians has gotten together as “Cage Against the Machine” and released their own recording of ” 4′ 33″ “ for charity.
(The recording does not appear to be available from iTunes, but you can go to Amazon and pick from the original or seven different remixes of ” 4’33”
What the article doesn’t mention, but the mailing list post does, is that “Cage Against the Machine” is also a deliberate attempt to keep the winner of “X Factor” in the UK from reaching #1 on the charts on Christmas weekend. (A similar attempt to do the same thing last year with an old “Rage Against the Machine” song actually worked.) When I mentioned this to Mike the Musicologist, he informed me that I was about 10 days late and a dollar short, and sent along a link to this thoughtful blog post.
Pretty much anything that sabotages one of Simon Cowell’s glorified karaoke competitions fills me with delight, and there have been times when I’ve wanted to walk up to musicians and slip them a few bucks to play ” 4’33” “. But I’ve got to give the blogger points; he’s right that there’s more to Cage than that one composition, and we run the risk of turning Cage into a joke by concentrating on that one piece.