THOUGHT: Hallelujah, it's Christmas.

That was a pun, by the way. You think I'd actually be excited about Christmas?
Definitely not. But let's take a moment to reflect this year's ups and downs... the X Factor being one of the bigger downs.

Don't get me wrong. It's fantastic television: every utterly construed moment, from the 'conversation' between judges and contestants to the 'live' performances, has been written and planned the same way an episode of Eastenders is. Though this all has its place - if you can watch it with this already in mind, then that's fine. You'll be seeing it for what it is: mindless television. Always has been, and is great at being so. The real problem I have here is the music that comes out of the end. It's as if Simon Cowell ate a massive mince pie of people's fears and misconceptions, and took a three-and-a-half minute long dump at the end in the public's (figurative) toilet. It has been the same for the past few years now, with the X Factor being cleverly done at Christmas time to garner extra points and municipal awareness by always managing to spruce it straight to Number One. Another year, another X Factor turd sitting at the top of the chart while we open our presents. But will it be different this time round?

Alexandra Burke, the latest X Factor winner, is realeasing her own version of Hallelujah.
Now, covers are wonderful things. They allow another intrepration of a musical idea; sometimes they can be subtle redirections, sometimes they can be entirely different takes on the initial design, and sometimes they can even blow the original out of the water. And some, just some, are simply ill-conceived and conceited lumps of refuse, and in this case, an absolute cash-in.
You can hear it in her pointless bluesy vocal histronics. You can hear it in the quickly scraped-together guitar. You can even hear it in the massive backing choir, in a shockingly ineffectual yet ultimately vomit-inducing chorus halfway in.
In hindsight, it's not actually that bad. Just boring, boring, boring, and entirely devoid of any tangible emotion from Burke. Not her fault as she would've been speedily put through the motions in the studio to throw this all together, but the end result is the same.

And that's really what the song Hallelujah is all about. It's a track that's easily covered, and malleable enough for the singer to let their own personality be etched onto it. This is why it's been covered so many times: John Cale, Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor and countless others all have had their shot at the Leonard Cohen classic. K.D. Lang's Hallelujah is a prime example of how the emotion in the voice really is the centrepiece of this track. Yet, the 'definitive' version has for a long time been Jeff Buckley's go. This is probably because it's one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful / beautifully heartbreaking pieces of music of all time, and as most of you probably know it's going head-to-head with Burke's for the Christmas No. 1 spot.
Numerous facebook groups support this 'cause'. I think it'd be fantastic to hear something good on the radio for once over Christmas. But here's the real thought: why would you give a toss about the chart, singles or albums wise, in the first place? Essentially the chart never, ever is the decider of what good music is. It's a popularity contest: imagine all the most popular people at school. Does it mean they're mostly good people? I doubt it highly, and the chart is no different. The point is, why should we really care who gets No.1 at all? It's all a silly game anyway. But, as previously said, it'd be wonderful to hear a song like Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah over the holiday, and to garner even more of a following of his celebratory version.
But you don't really care for music, do you? I'm talking to you, Simon.

(The idea of this massive rant was inspired by, of all things, an NME article. Shock horror. It has loads of different versions of Hallelujah, very interesting.)