“Hallelujah” All Over the UK Charts
Major Ka-Ching! for Simon Cowell as 3 versions of the song “Hallelujah”, for which he apparently owns the rights to the original recordings by Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley, hits the UK Christmas chart. From Billboard:
2008 “X Factor” winner Alexandra Burke had her U.K. Christmas No. 1 single confirmed yesterday (Dec. 21), as her version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (Syco Music/Sony BMG) debuted at the top with sales of 576,000 units to become the fastest-selling single by a female solo artist in British chart history.
The late Jeff Buckley’s 1994 version of the song, also publicized during the recent series, raced 30-2, bringing about the first occasion that the British singles chart has featured the same song in the top two positions for nearly 52 years.To complete an extraordinary week for Cohen, his own 1984 original of “Hallelujah” entered the singles chart at No. 36, giving the Canadian singer/songwriter his first U.K. top 40 hit as an artist, at the age of 74. Although downloads now make up the vast majority of the singles market, the breakdown of Burke’s sales underlined that the British music consumer will still buy a physical single when it’s seen as a true “event”: almost exactly half of Burke’s sales, 287,000, were as physical singles.
Nevertheless, her 289,000 downloads are a one-week digital record, beating former “X Factor” winner Leona Lewis’ 140,000 sales for “A Moment Like This” in 2006.
Burke’s 576,000 sales dwarfed Buckley’s, at 81,000, but it’s the first time one song has dominated the top two spots on the chart since January 1957, when Guy Mitchell’s “Singing the Blues” and Tommy Steele’s British cover did battle throughout the month. Mitchell led the way in the first two weeks, with Steele at No. 2 for the second of those, before they traded places for a week and then traded back again, giving Mitchell a total of three weeks on top to Steele’s one.
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29 Responses to ““Hallelujah” All Over the UK Charts”
I understand that it’s the music business but I also feel a little queasy about Simon not only owning the shows that make the stars,but the stars and the rights to the music they sing as well. For some reason, I thought the rights to the songs was the only piece of the pie he didn’t get. Greedy guy.
I wonder if the guy who wrote TOML made much $ off that song or if the rights are owned by Simon as well.
I like Ms. Burke’s voice better than Leona’s which tends to be too divaish for my taste. However, I find this to be a horrible rendition of an amazing song. That so many people have bought it just proves to me that many people have all their taste in their mouth.
I believe Jason chose the song to sing all by himself. Simon, being the businessman he is, saw how well it went over. I have a bit of a problem with him choosing a song for the X Factor winner that he owns, but it’s not illegal and doesn’t really surprise me. After all, one can’t have too many million dollar cars
Maybe they should have a coronation single…let’s see what she can do with magic rainbows.
It’s a great song, and exposure on Idol never hurts a song at all. I love all the versions that I’m aware of, including k. d. Laing’s, and Brandi Carlyle’s recent rendition. It’s always fun watching songs jump up on the itunes chart as soon as they’re performed on Idol. I actually remember Jeff Buckley’s fans being amazed when his song jumped into the top songs, and they didn’t know why at first. Talk about scratching heads.
Jolene I understand what you mean about Simon and I feel the same way. He’s a shrewd businessman, but like you I put art before profit. In our culture I think we’ve temporarily forgotten the inherent value of art for art’s sake.
The publishing rights (I think as well as everything else) of all Leonard Cohen’s older songs including “Hallelujah” was sold by Leonard Cohen to Sony-BMG. Simon’s company Syco is part of Sony-BMG, and I suspect there is some kind of confusion by the writer of that article and misattributed the ownership of those recordings.