Leonard Cohen To Net A Million?

12/15/08 5:55pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Leonard Cohen could become £1 million (about $1.9 million Canadian) richer before the new year.

The Canadian singer, songwriter and poet is set to collect £1 million in royalties from the U.K.'s X Factor television show because the Canadian Idol-like program's three finalists — Alexandra Burke, Eoghan Quigg and boy band JLS — have recorded their own versions of Cohen's "Hallelujah" as a single. One of them is expected to hit the top spot on the U.K. singles chart over Christmas, which means it could sell a million copies and downloads.

More than 105,000 copies of Burke's version of "Hallelujah" have been downloaded since Sunday, which makes it the fastest selling download ever in Europe. Burke is the favourite for the Christmas #1, since she's currently at the top of the overall internet sales chart as well as the iTunes and HMV.com charts. Physical copies of the single will be available in the U.K. on Wednesday.

This has been a good year for Cohen, despite the current global economic crisis. According to Britain's The Times newspaper, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame member's U.K. tour netted him £5 million (about $9.5 million Canadian) earlier this year. Other dates around the world were just as lucrative.

That, in combination with this new windfall from Cohn's 1984 composition, should help take the sting away from the 74-year-old allegedly being defrauded of about $5 million by a former unscrupulous manager. Cohen said he embarked on his first tour in 15 years to pad his retirement fund, which had been severely depleted.

Jeff Buckley fans aren't happy about the X Factor contestants recording "Hallelujah." Buckley, who drowned in a tributary of the Mississippi River in 1997, recorded "Hallelujah" for his 1994 Grace debut.

Buckley's version of Cohen's song is sitting at #43 on the U.K. singles chart because, according to NME.com, Buckley fans have been buying it in protest of the X Factor releases. A Facebook group has even been set up to encourage Buckley's fans to buy his version of "Hallelujah" and send it to #1 over the X Factor contestants' covers.

Buckley once described his version of "Hallelujah" as "an homage to 'the hallelujah of orgasm,'" according to Rolling Stone. So I guess the choice is yours, U.K. readers: Do you want an orgasm or do you want something made on TV?