"After a Facebook campaign to make it the number 1 UK single in December 2009, ""Killing In The Name"" by which band set a record for most downloads in a single week, selling over 500,000 copies?"
2009 in British music charts A Facebook group, set up to halt "Simon Cowells stranglehold on the charts" by getting the 1992 "Killing in the Name" to the top of the charts, got 750,000 members and led Rage Against the Machine to the first download-only Christmas number one, selling over 500,000 copies – ahead of Joe McElderry by 50,000. In the following week's chart (week ending January 2, 2010) McElderry's single, "The Climb" made it to the number one spot. Notes: Total sales for albums in 2009 amounted to 128,946,805 the lowest since 1999. This record would be beaten in 2013 when only 94,000,000 albums
Killing in the Name lyrics, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" repeatedly. Hosts Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty apologized afterward. On December 20, 2009, BBC Radio 1 revealed the song had successfully reached the number one spot, selling more than 500,000 copies and being the first exclusively download-only single to be Christmas number one in the process. The following week Joe McElderry's cover of the song "The Climb" became the last British number one single of 2009. "Killing In The Name" dropped to number two, falling 38 places to number 40 the week after, and dropping out of the top 75