Unless you’ve been hiding under a tree or have been in a coma, you’ll have noticed a lot of airplay for Leonard Cohens‘ Hallelujah. Or is that Jeff Buckley? X Factor winner Alexandra Burke used the song to help her win the talent competition last weekend, and the mp3 download charts have gone crazy with people looking for her version, the original Cohen version, and Buckley version. Are people confused and buying the wrong version (no doubt the younger generation would be looking for the Burke version), or are younger listeners learning about old musical gems due to a cover version by a new artist?
Now the song has broken some sort of crazy record for being the first song ever to chart three versions of it at the same time. Burke has sold 105,000 digital downloads of her version of the song in one day (a record in itself), and it’s looking like Hallelujah will be number 1 & 2 in the UK charts by Christmas. Cohens version is in the top 100 too, and the BBC have picked up on this too.
Whatever way you want to look at it, all this download chart hopping is great to see for several reasons:
- The music industry isn’t dead – it just needed to adapt to new ways to distribute and sell music, and these chart results are a testament to how the music industry is finally moving with the times.
- X Factor is totally cheesy and musical purists most likely hate it, but it is helping newer generations discover new music.
- Alexandra Burke is very easy on the eye.