Hallelujah

Dear James,

There was an uproar on one of the blog pages of The Guardian about an X Factor contestant covering Hallelujah. Or they did a Leonard Cohen day on X Factor. Or something. Anyway, everyone was very tetchy about the king of grumpiness being bastardised in such a callous and commercial way. Then there was an argument about Jeff Buckley's version being better. Then someone said it had 14 verses. Then someone said Jeff Buckley was a whining girl. The thread of the original argument was lost shortly after.

I don't think it's such a bad thing that X Factor warblers do Hallelujah. As you can see from this appearance on a Japanese chat show, Leonard Cohen isn't that arsed either. I think the thrust of the argument on the Guardian blog was down to the old chestnut of people wanting to protect the secret songs that are special to them and unknown to the masses. If you're mum starts buying Leonard Cohen compilations to go alongside her James Blunt and that David chap who did very well a few years ago, you have to leave Lenny behind and find some other musical curmudgeon. And that means getting into Nick Cave.

Why is that we stop listening to stuff we like when everyone else starts liking it? Are we snobs? Are we music Nazis? Does the music get devalued? Would you still be listening to Oasis if no one else had bought Definitely Maybe? And how come this doesn´t apply to older bands like The Beatles and Billy Joel? Eh?