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Whilst trawling the news sites this morning I came across the news story that “Hallelujah” is the Christmas number one, but two other versions are also in the top forty. Alexandra Burke’s cover has taken the top spot with Jeff Buckley’s cover in at number two and the Leonard Cohen version at 36.
Brief history, Alexandra won the X-Factor and Simon Cowell decided that the first single released would be a cover, clever move. Although he didn’t anticipate a hate group rising up against manufactured music and with the new rules on downloads influencing the charts thousands of people drove to download the Jeff Buckley version of the song in an attempt to get that to number one instead of the terrible Burke version.
HMV’s Gennaro Castaldo said:
“It’s ironic that it’s taken the X Factor to get a lot more of us to appreciate the music of Leonard Cohen and the talent of Jeff Buckley.”
Thats rubbish, its because the X-Factor has tortured such a classic song that so many people are in love with, they wanted to come out in their numbers and show their appreciation for it and not the teenage trash that is the Burke cover. We already knew and appreciated Cohen and Buckley which is why people bought that rather than the Burke version. The only people did buy Burke are the tweens who are so in love with staying in on a Saturday night and watching a no-talent contest.
I’m just sad that Buckley didn’t make the top spot, but with no advertising or multi-million pound exposure behind it that Cowell can muster it did a bloody good job. Lets hope this depresses Burke enough to call it a day.
Source: BBC