Hallelujah

When I heard that the winner of this year's X-Factor was to release Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah', I was mildly annoyed. Mostly because they'd picked the song before they even knew who was going to be singing it - not a great recipe for a good piece of music. Then, I promptly forgot about it.

Clearly I wasn't as annoyed as the creator of this Facebook group persuading people to buy Jeff Buckley's beautiful recording of the song, and hoping to get it to Christmas #1 ahead of the X-Factor winner's version.

Impressively, they've gotten onto Radio 1, and into a lot of online media (and to cap it all, they're now on my blog). Jeff's version is currently at #3 in the midweek charts and, although it has no chance of getting to #1, it'll still be amusing to hear it played alongside the inevitably worse X-Factor version on the radio chart shows. Not that I've actually listened to radio for about 3 years, but you get the idea.

Most amusing of all however, is the comments section of the Daily Mail's hilarious report on this 'news'. Now, Daily Mail readers aren't the most intellectual of stereotypes, and indeed the opening line of the article rather sets the tone:

"Anti-X Factor campaigners are trying to sabotage Alexandra Burke's chances of taking the coveted Christmas number one spot by downloading an alternative version of her winner's song.".

Or, as someone back at the Facebook group translated it:

"Pro-immigration eco-terrorist anti-capitalist Maddie-hoarding haters of Great Britain have launched a Nazi-esque attack on the poor defenceless winner of patriotic family-orientated show, the X Factor.".

I'll leave you to read the rest of the comments hilarity. You could even go and digitally download the Jeff Buckley version too if you have 79p to spare and aren't a fan of reality TV. Me? I really just don't care enough.