Stars in silent protest

Supergroup record anti-X Factor 'song'...

10:52 07 December 2010

An anti-X Factor group has recorded a 'song' which will go up against the winner's single for the Christmas number one spot.

The supergroup, which includes such names as Madness star Suggs and The Kooks, recorded their own version of composer John Cage's experimental 4'33''.

Cage's 'song', which consists of musicians playing nothing at all, was chosen because it was the most "avant garde piece of music ever made".

Dozens of musicians turned up to the recording, including members of Heaven 17, Guillemots frontman Fyfe Dangerfield, dance act Pendulum, Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac.

Pete Doherty was among the artists named on the line up who didn't turn up.

XFM DJ Eddy Temple-Morris helped organise the event. He said: "You could hear the odd click of a camera shutter or a creak.

"It was an emotional, unusual, quite beautiful thing to have so many people in a room and be silent."

The campaign has been dubbed 'Cage Against the Machine' after band Rage Against the Machine's success in getting to number one last Christmas.

X Factor winner, Joe McElderry lost out on the number one spot after a huge campaign on Facebook against the show.

The single will raise money for five charities, including the British Tinnitus Association and Calm, a service for young men at risk of suicide.