Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah set for top two spots in Christmas Day charts A bunfight has kicked off on the interwebs between fans of the teary-eyed winner of X Factor and fey, navel-gazing muso types who want their Hallelujah back. The result? Leonard Cohen’s oft-covered love song could occupy the number one and number two slots on Christmas Day. Fans have been doing their best to counteract …
I hope dearly buckers can bring it back from the grave and then a truly deserving cover will be #1, burke is quite a good singer, but no-one's ever gonna beat jeff's version, just leave it be!!!
I'm glad theres enough people with an appreciation for jeffs one that this has gained such momentum, over the past month or so i've been enjoying grace immensely as I sit by the open fire sucking on tasty volcano vapor, I recommend everyone else does the same, keep it festive
Just to point out.. the aim of the group is not to stop Sony BMG making money - in fact most know full well they stand to win whatever happens. Nor is it to mindlessly slate Miss Burke.
It's simply to highlight the greatest version of the song. If it achieves number 2 at the weekend... then that has been achieved. Of course regardless of the Alexandras talent, most would say its a pretty weak cover. Thats not her fault though.
"Hey, get round the television, everyone: it's Sir Stiff vs. Status Queue, part 374!" The annual Christmas music charts obsession, like tabulating and extrapolating music sales is still *so* interesting and relevant. British media groupthink at its very finest, and everyone is sure to be watching the left hand while the right hand gives them the shaft. Dumb enough yet are we, Britain?
As a fan of actual music (as opposed to noise with a brand name attatched), I'm morally opposed to both Buckley's narcissistic, 'look at me, I'm so depressed because my mum won't drop me off round the corner from school when she gives me a lift in the Range Rover - it's so embarrasing because I'm only 16 and my friends are 17 and all drive brand new Nissan Micras' rot and the 'I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy just doesn't work', X-Factor Opportunity Knocks pish.
I'm hoping for a decent Christmas number one.
Go John Sergeant!
Ahem.
1) 'Leech'.
2) One of the artists is already dead, dipstick, and wishing it on others is *so* uncool.
Personally I think the Buckley version is unsurpassable, so I'm not going to get all offended by one more person doing a version - I'm just not that interested in it. If others are into it and miss out on better versions, it's their loss. It's one of the greatest songs ever and almost unequalled in its robustness when it comes to being covered - you can't really fuck it up or somehow ruin the original or whatever you consider to be the definitive version by doing another forgettable one. Timmy Mallett couldn't fuck it up, so a competent enough and vaguely soulful warbler like Alexandra Burke will do fine. Let her have a Christmas number one. Why should anyone get upset?
Ahhhhh, it's so relaxing not to care about these things.
Come to think of it I feel a bit sorry for Alexandra. This is her one moment of lovely awesomeness and joy before she's put on the treadmill, starts to realise how horrible and soul-destroying the industry actually is, and becomes just another generic pop singer who'll either ascend to Leona-grade stardom or slither back into ignonimious normalcy and obscurity where she'll always wistfully remember the one time she was recognised.
Kind of seems mean-spirited to do this Buckley-bomb, then. Buckley's been dead for years - his legacy is secure, and people will either flap their arms and pule about what a whining adolescent he was (oh behave), or celebrate him as an artist of merit, blah blah. He wouldn't care. It's ridiculous.
Hmm, now I feel like going and downloading Alexandra's version, just to make a point about the point everyone else thinks is so important to make. But then I still don't care enough to do that.
Meh.
I was going to say something along the lines of Dominic's post - comparatively few people have the original Cohen album it comes from, but those who do know it's a gigantic pile of 80s cheese: great songs, somewhat compromised by the poorly-recorded gospel choirs and synthesized *everything*.
Also, Stevie, no fair! I have that album, and have been diligently trying to bury the memory of that hideous, Godawful cover from the one time I accidentally let it play for thirty seconds. *shudders*
> One of the artists is already dead, dipstick, and wishing it on others is *so* uncool.
Does that include wishing it on Simon Cowell? Last I noticed he was a man whose waistband is around his nipples, which is about as uncool as you can get. He's getting paid millions for televising some auditions. That's right, auditions!
Mine's the coat with the gun and a bullet with Cowell's name on it...
... at the most depressing time of year for many people, the Number One song could be "music to slit your wrists to"...!
Well, maybe there's a god above,
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah...
Happy Xmas everyone...
I'm damaging muscles from wincing and rolling my eyes at the mere mention of the Yuk factor. If anyone felt a convincing reason was required to ban ITV entirely and erase all mention of them from history, this programme is it. I never thought I'd see El Reg stoop so low.
Anyway, as mentioned above, Cohen's version is unsurpassable.
"Mine's the coat with the gun and a bullet with Cowell's name on it..."
Back of the line ... and believe me, it's a long one.
Personally, I couldn't give a flying fuck who gets the Christmas no.1 although I derive some comfort that it's not gonna be Sir Stiff Pilchard.
There'd be something deliciously ironic about Leonard Cohen being no.1 ...
Flames, because I'm sure there's a special circle of Hell being prepared for Cowell & co.
Personally I'm at a loss to find a Song more hateful then this steaming Pile of Rancid Feces!
I don't care who sings it!!!
Then again anything hat has to do with Adults and there "Imaginary Friends", is enough to send me in a tizzy.
Please pitch-in and stop this needless Mind-Pollution...
Sci-Guy 'cause I agree w/Darwin. Now if only these Monkeys on X-Factor would only evolve!?!
Whoops, I posted something similar to the WoW article, but maybe this is the best place for it...
Hallelujah by The Happy Mondays c. 1989 is the definitive version... yes, not the same song, but it is much better, don't you know...
@ Sarah Bee.. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we're here to pull yer...
;-s
Most of the other songs on that Cohen album are better. The John Cale version is by far the best. Buckleys duet with Liz Fraser 'All Flowers in time bend towards the sun' is a far better song than his cover of Hallelujah.
Shouldn't JLS have sang Cohens 'Alexandra leaving' instead ?
Seems I have Cohens version in my collection, well I did and after listening to about 75% of it I have deleted it. The X-factor one was on the radio earlier and it's weak, just like everything else in the programme (lets face it, if any of them were any good they would have been discovered years ago).
If it can be stopped from being xmas number one by anything we need to do it and then hopefully it will get the dross of the TV forever.
I think Peter Kays song should be number 1 as at least the profits go to a worthy cause and with Baby P fresh in everyones minds an NSPCC song is very appropriate, rather than lining Cowell and Sonys pockets.
And found that the Andy Buckley version is rubbish...
I still maintain the Happy Mondays version is the one you want to hear with Grandma on Xmas day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2yK-NUyAIY
Still, this is better with your loved(ex) ones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBQ3t6ezh2I
>boycott both and buy the Terry Wogan / Aled Jones version of Little Drummer Boy
If anything will raise my venom levels higher than X-Whatever its the mention of the W***** word. Lets all all argue about the definitive version of a rather depressing dirge (I do like Cale and Buckleys versions BTW) but lets not descend into complete mindless mediocrity by bring that Irish tw*t into the debate.
I broke all my limbs and had my teeth kicked out in fight and was unable to bite my tongue and bleed to death or hold my breath long enough to pass out so I was stuck watching the telly when X-Factor came on an I couldnt do anything about it.
It turns out that X-Factor is the medias equivalent of the BSoD.
You can upgrade to avoid this - it requires a 1kg mass of fired earth and should be installed through the glass of your CRT or flat screen at about 50ms-1. It simply not worth having a TV in case you get caught like I did.
The Sisters of Mercy doing Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". They used to do this better than Floyd ever did it and that's saying something. Trouble here is (AFAIK) they only ever did this live. So it's a "you had to be there" sort of thing. The time they opened with it on a Tuesday some 15 years ago (fuck, I feel old now) at the Brixton Academy is probably the definitive version. Awesome.
When it comes to covers IMHO, if you can't think of a way of reinterpreting the original, you shouldn't bother. If you want to do it the same way it's always been done, form a tribute band.
Ahh, the Cowell money making machine continues to roll. Cowells company Sony BMG owns the publishing and sheet music rights to Hallelujah, (dreadful old durge), and he has just been granted label rights to the work of all the X-Factor winners for another 5 years. www.femalefirst.co.uk/business/Simon+Cowell-225.html.
Bring back the Generation Game, Blankity Blank, or Stars in their Eyes (No, only joking, really no!)
Should see him nicely through the recession though.
The "push this song to the top of the charts over this other one for x arbitrary reason or other" seems to be such a fixture of the Christmas charts that I half wonder whether the record companies poke the "grassroots campaign" into action in the first place.
Note that the pop song du jour usually wins, after a "nailbiting", "close" and "tense" battle, of course.
...... do it right (Wham, I think). Anyway, the best way to decide the best version of Hallelujah is to have an X-Factor Xmas Special with all remaining living artists performing for Simon and Co. and let the panel vote (with the required phone-in voting - which will be ignored).
Also, Niall, totally agree - Hendrix 'All along the watchtower' is the best cover version ever.
Also also, I've had Jeff Buckley's Grace album for a while and 'Lover, you should have come over' is the best track on it.
@ beast666 - who's Andy Buckley?
Most of the cover versions done are based on what John Cale did with the song, so he should get most of the credit, but most people seem to agree that the Jeff Buckley version is the best of a huge pile of covers.
I spend ages the other day listening to loads of these, and to my musical tastes, Buckleys is the best, followed by Cales.
...and it was pretty much your standard R-n-B-can't-stay-on-a-single-note-for-a-second kind of warbling fluff. It didn't sound much like a cold and a broken hallelujah to me. But what do I know.
I quite liked the version that was on the Shrek soundtrack.* Who sang that, then?
* I have kids, that's why. Screw you.
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