And the X Factor winner is . . . Leonard Cohen. The mordant songwriter is set for a £1 million windfall after his classic song Hallelujah was chosen as the debut single by tonight’s winner.Here is a version from The Man himself:
The biblical epic, composed in 1984, has survived more than a hundred interpretations from artists including Bob Dylan, k. d. lang and Rufus Wainwright.
The ITV1 show’s three finalists have each recorded their own version of the song, which is expected to become the Christmas No 1, selling one million CDs and downloads.
13 December 2008
Disgraceful
No, I do not approve. How dare they take the work of the master and prostitute it in such a way. The Times reports:
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4 comments:
But there is something good coming from it if the various You Tube blogs are representative, i.e., a good number of youngsters who might otherwise not have been exposed to such classics are discovering the maestro.
PS Perhaps we could have A Thousand Kisses Deep as music of the week?
I cannot believe that given all Cohen's masterpieces you should want Thousand Kisses Deep!
I have to say that as a lifelong Cohen fan, even visiting his house in wintry Montreal and seeing him 3times this year,I thought Alexandra's version last night wasn't that bad. Certainly better than the morose Jeff Buckley. The only version that comes near the great man himself is by k d lang on her Songs from the 49th Parallel CD
Well, at least this has inspired some commentary, unlike some of the usual posts about more mundane topics such as local income tax or the huge hole in the SNP Government's budget.
But I suspect from the fact that he obviously watches X Factor that Half marathin man is more a fan of Cohen's pop phase than of the beautiful poems he's penned. A Thousand Kisses Depp is indeed a classic. And I must say that Jeff Buckley's version is probably the best. K D Lang's is over-produced and affected.
Wrong on all counts Anonymous.
First time ever watching the X Factor simply to see what they did with Hallelujah - and wasted an hour and a half of my life watching the first part as they didn't get to Hallelujah to the second part.
And far from favouring Cohen's pop phase as you put it,I think his best album is Songs of Love and Hate with such bleak classics as Avanlanche, Last Year's Man and Joan of Arc.
A Thousand Kisses Deep is turgid and typical of the weak work produced in collaboration with the dreaded Sharon Robinson.
And finally, I don't think Hallelujah even features in the Top Ten best Cohen. But he is saddled with it being his most famous song, a bit like Bruce and Born in the USA
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