Jeff Buckley fans catapult ‘Hallelujah’ up charts in response to X-Factor single

Fans of the late singer Jeff Buckley are celebrating his return to the charts after starting a campaign to make his version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ the Christmas number one.

The Facebook campaign began after it was announced that the X-Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, would be recording a cover of the cult track as her ‘winner’s song’.

After only several days, the group has attracted over 100,000 members, and Buckley’s track has reached number three in the iTunes chart, just three places behind the X-Factor version.

Buckley’s cover of the song has garnered a great deal of critical acclaim since its release 14 years ago; Leonard Cohen, who originally wrote ‘Hallelujah’, preferred it to his own version, Q Magazine voted it one of their ‘Top 10 Greatest Tracks’, branding it “as near perfect as you can get”, and Rolling Stone included it in a list of the ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’.

Buckley, who died in 1997, has attracted a huge cult following – including many celebrities. Robert Pattinson, star of Twilight, recently spoke of his wish to play Buckley in the planned biopic Mystery White Boy, whilst Brad Pitt has previously expressed a desire to help produce the film.

Despite hoping to knock Alexandra from the number one spot, the campaign founder Lucy Powell stresses that this is not an attack on the X-Factor winner. “I just wanted to make it clear to people that there was already an amazing version of ‘Hallelujah’. I didn’t like the idea of a song whose lyrics and melody I have found incredibly moving being used to sell records by whichever competitor won a talent contest.”

Whatever the end result, supporters of the campaign have sent a clear message - by managing to chart Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’ an incredible 14 years after its release. 

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