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A Cowell-centric rant
For those of you unlucky to be blessed with UK television, that commercial behemoth known as X Factor has its final in a few hours. For those of you unaware of it, and those who don't own a TV, never watch anyone elses' TV and never talk to another human being, you will know the name Simon Cowell. X Factor is, of course, a ploy by Mr Cowell to fund the diamond-studded extension to his dog's en-suite gymnasium. The gym equipment being funded by American Idol.
Normally I wouldn't care. American Idol, Pop Factor, Guatemalan X Idol, whatever. A bunch of blatent pop packaging and promotion to make money for everyone but the contestants, and spawn a new candidate for Celebrity Rehab. But, X Factor has always had a cunning plan - the winner releases a single, with more post work than Cher's I Believe, designed to take the Xmas No1 slot. Pure, unadulterated plastic pop of the lowest order, with Mr C bathing in unicorn semen on the takings. The music industry's version of stealing candy from a baby and selling it back to starving children.
Again, I don't care, not usually. But this time, the single will be Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
It may be me getting old and crabby, it may be the lack of claret this fine evening, but that pisses me off. I've worked with hundreds of musicians over the years who know they daren't touch it. We all have a favorite version, and despite over 100 attempts to cover it those favorites will be no more than 4 names. It took him a year to write and 70 verses, it's a polemic of religion, sex, music and relationships on multiple levels, and is not, most absolutely not, a pop song. Especially not a pop song for a boy band or a teenage girl, who are the likely contenders in this case. You can sing it when you've lived enough to understand it, and not before.
Mr Cowell 'encountered' the song when he heard it on American Idol, and immediately released it though his previous reality show winners, Il Divo, though it didn't float. I very much doubt he even knows which Cohen album it's on, nor what the lyric is about, but it's a shoe-in for the Xmas sales. To the X Factor machine it's just "that song they used on the OC", which is a case in point - Hallelujah is very very rarely used in synch, because almost everyone in the industry sees it as something strangely special. We often think about using it for a scene and pick something else, because as with the OC, you can only get away with it once.
Unfortunately, Leonard is more than a little strapped for cash at the moment, and so the pile of Benjamins is going to win. He's always said the song isn't really 'his' anymore; it grew beyond that. To me, that still doesn't mean you can drive a truck over it to make a rich man richer.
So anyway, rant over, we return you to your scheduled program.
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Originally Posted by VoltaireBlue
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