Hallelujah on UK X-Factor (all threads merged here)

[scorp]

So has anyone found out yet whether Leonard still gets any royalties or anything at all from his own catalogue ?

he gets £1m says the times today...royalites from the xmuss numero uno.

[scorp]

Seems pretty clear Mr C gets his rightful (monetary, at least!) due.

This morning's Times:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 333323.ece

there is also an excellent editorial on page 2 called 'Hallelujah for Hallelujah'...with quotes from Suzanne and Sisters and Mercy...and words from Bird on a wire. But it's not online!

[Tim08]

Hello,

This is a message asking for people to help get Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah to Christmas number 1 instead of the cover of a cover that will be released by this years X Factor winner.

If any of you are thinking about getting the X Factor's version, please consider what happened last year to everyone who shelled out money to get Leon to number 1, nothing else came of it.

However if you are interested in joining in the cause to have the better cover for number one, please remember to download the single from the week of Monday 15th as anything before will not count towards sales. If you are outside of the UK and interested in helping, please ask a UK resident to maybe download the single and send to you.

Any help would be appreciated.

[hydriot]

So has anyone found out yet whether Leonard still gets any royalties or anything at all from his own catalogue ?

he gets £1m says the times today...royalites from the xmuss numero uno.

Don't trust the Times. Why would they know anything about Leonard's contractual restrictions? As I understand it, Hallelujah was one of the songs in the back-catalogue sold to Sony, the proceeds of which were subsequently embezzled. I don't believe Leonard will get a penny.

Why do you think Hallelujah was chosen? Simon Cowell, who made the decision, controls Syco, a branch of Sony, and Sony owns Leonard's back catalogue. This way it all stays in the family ... the Sony family, that is.

[Paula]

That was what I thought too Hydriot. If I thought Leonard was going to get his royalties it would make the whole x-factor element that less painful.

Having said that the kudos of having a Christmas No. 1 penned by Leonard would be the icing on the cake to end a year in Britain where he has reclaimed Hallelujah at every concert I went to.

Leonard version is in my opinion the best version of Hallelujah and it always will be.

[hydriot]

This new thread is for discussion of the new cover of Hallelujah, to be released for the Christmas market. The winner will be announced in a little more than an hour.

There is generous coverage of Leonard on page 4 of The Times today, here http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 333323.ece

However, as I understand it, contrary to the reporter's claims, Leonard will not get any money from the cover, as rights to Hallelujah were included in the sale of the back-catalogue, the proceeds of which were then embezzled. That said, the publicity and goodwill shown to Leonard rounds off beautifully a truly remarkable year for him.

Here is the text of the editorial on page 2 of The Times today (not available on-line):

Hallelujah for Hallelujah
As singer, as songwriter and as poet, Leonard Cohen has the true X factor

"I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord..."
Purists keep faith with the gospel-tinted original. Others swear by Rufus Wainwright's recording of Hallelujah. Some tap their nose knowingly, as if leading you into a secret garden, and play you Jeff Buckley's haunting version. Tonight Cohen's song will again be catapulted up the charts after it is released as a Christmas single by the winner of The X Factor (see page 4).

If this latest cover does reach No 1 -- the latest of more than 100 versions of Hallelujah, which has been sung by everyone from Bob Dylan to Bono -- it will confirm what every musician knows. Whoever the singer might be, it is the song that steals our hearts. Singing -- Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra notwithstanding -- is easy. Writing is hard. That's why Hallelujah took Cohen two years, and hot tears, to finish. It's why Lennon and McCartney today still mint more millions than other entertainers, four decades after they last signed off a Beatles tune. And why Cole Porter will never go out of fashion.

The latest rebirth of Hallelujah also draws Cohen to the attention of a new audience, who see not a grey old man with a voice like gravel, but a singer whose lyrics stand up as poetry just as powerfully as do the songs of Dylan. Cohen is not only Canada's greatest singer (where are his rivals? Celine Dion?) but also its sweetest poet.

His Sisters of Mercy "will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem", Suzanne "will trust you, for you've touched her perfect body with your mind". Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, Cohen has tried in his way to be free. And for that, sing Hallelujah.

[hydriot]

On page 4 of the Times there is also a rather florid sidebar written by a musicologist, James Doheny, which I transcribe here (it is not available on-line):

A perfect fit in words and music

In searching for a song's essence, a good place to start is with its creator. Leonard Cohen's oft-mentioned roots in poetry are of primary importance here.

It's the song's words which are its generative force, not only lyrically but musically: much of the melodic character of the song is derived from their lilting ebb and flow, and its gospel music harmonic progressions well suit their biblical and ecstatic imagery.

This must be one of the few songs that precisely represents its musical harmony in lyric: "The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift..." are descriptions of the song's melodic movement.

In the song's key of C major that's F major (the fourth), G major (the fifth), Am (the "minor fall" to the darker relative minor chord), F major again (the "major lift" back to the fourth or sub-dominant chord) in preparation for a key change (or "modulation") to the relative minor key (A minor) proper on the "lu-jah" of "composing Hallelujah".

That this arrival at the song's first Hallelujah should be accompanied by a journey to the harmonic darkside (albeit temporary) is indicative of how the song works in macrocosm too.

And yet this song is definitely a celebration too, a love song to the idea of love, regardless of its perils: a hymn to the essential rightness of its pursuit.

In this secular ecstacy we experience the divine and it's in the way Cohen not only blurs the line between the two throughout, but has them co-existing, tension unresolved on so many levels musically and lyrically, that makes Hallelujah so achingly human and so magnificently transcendent.

[Tony]

Plea to boycot Christmas Number 1

Why?

[Paula]

Well just heard the two versions JLS sanitised it I think Alex's was the better of the two. Alex's version was a lot stronger JLS was too quiet and overpowered by that bloody choir. What was that all about?

Both of them condensed the song to a few verses so I hope the X-factor winner is ................. Leonard Cohen

Having said that the kudos of having a Christmas No. 1 penned by Leonard would be the icing on the cake to end a year in Britain where he has reclaimed Hallelujah at every concert I went to.

Leonard version is in my opinion the best version of Hallelujah and it always will be.

[julian_c]

Well - all I can say is based on the performance by Alexandra that I have just witnessed on live TV here in UK - it must be Xmas No. 1 - if her recorded version is half as good as her live version - I tell you the girl had me weeping like a baby ....... it is so long since real music, real singing and true emotion has made it this far on mainstream tv/entertainment .... she has my vote - i just hope she wins and we all get to hear her version over the media.

The other act, however will make a mockery of a beautiful song ..... vote for Alex !!

J

[kwills]

The Winner Is:-Alex!

[Paula]

Alex could cry for England she has sobbed all the way through the show. I think her rendition of Hallelujah won her the contest it was the more powerful. Good luck to her.

[kwills]

I just hope that the times article was correct and that Leonard will receive his just dues.
Hopefully,after this,people will get to hear Cohen's version of this superb song.
I remember a while back,Jeremy vine on radio 2,had a week of a different version of Hallelujah playing every day to find out which version was the best.I'm not sure,but I think that most people voted for the Jeff Buckley version,probably because they had heard that version more than cohen's I should imagine.

[hydriot]

I had the distinct impression that JLS didn't actually understand what they were singing about. Certainly, in their rendition it was impossible to make out the words. Alexandra Burke did much better (but of course Hallelujah is written for a solo voice, not a four-man choral group). She illustrated phrases with hand gestures (yes, even counting the fourth and fifth on her fingers ... which was going a bit far).

However, the weirdest thing was the arrangement foisted on both performers. The cover goes out with only three verses, the second being 'kitchen chair' and the third 'outdrew you'. The third verse is therefore the one and only time in this cover that we get the 'cold and broken Hallelujah' ... and it is sung fortissimo with backing choir as if in triumph!

Another case of a formulaic arrangement of a much-loved favourite penned with a total disdain for what the lyrics are actually saying...

[Yorkshire Lad]

Hallelujuh!! X Factor is over and Alexandra's Leaving