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"Hallelujah" is a song written by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen originally released on the 1984 studio album Various Positions. A significantly changed live recording of the song from 1988 was released on the 1994 album, Cohen Live, but neither version achieved wide commercial success outside of Cohen's fans until December 2008 when Cohen's studio recording reached #36 on the UK's single chart. In April 2009, a new live recording of the song was released on a 2CD and DVD collection titled Leonard Cohen: Live In London.

First covered by John Cale in 1991, Hallelujah has since been recorded over 200 times by different artists,[1] been the subject of a BBC radio documentary and been featured in the soundtracks of numerous movies and television shows. In the UK, the two most commercially successful cover singles have been by Alexandra Burke and Jeff Buckley, whose versions occupied the number one and two spots, respectively, of the UK pop charts in December 2008.

Alexandra Burke, the winner of the fifth series of British reality television show The X Factor, released a condensed cover version of the song as a prize for her victory. It reached the Christmas Number One spot on UK charts on 21 December 2008. The music video features footage from The X Factor, connecting the lyrics to the story of Burke's victory.

The release of Burke's cover created interest in the previous versions of the song, including a Buckley fan campaign to take Buckley's cover to the top of the Christmas chart in order to deny Burke the top spot. The campaign was fuelled by Jeff Buckley fans' dislike of The X Factor's commercialism and the song's arrangement, as well as a desire by this contingent to introduce younger music fans to Buckley's version. Burke herself was not enamoured of the choice of song, remarking "It just didn’t do anything for me".

Burke's version broke a European sales record after selling over 105,000 digital downloads in just one day, breaking the previous record set by Leona Lewis. It sold 576,000 copies in its first week, becoming the fastest selling single released by a woman in the UK, to become the Christmas number one, while Buckley's cover came second and Cohen's original version came thirty-sixth. On 28 December, 2008, the UK Singles Chart listed Burke's version as #1 biggest selling single of the year., with NME announcing sales of over 1 million copies since its release.

.: MEDIAFIRE :.