Leonard says Hallelujah for X Factor's Christmas cover

So you've already choked on your muesli, phoned into Livelineand cried into your latte macchiato along with your other Proper Music Fan friends. But there's no getting away from the End Of The World As We Know It: this year's X Factorwinner will release a cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujahas a single. It will be number one at Christmas, it will sell gazillions of copies, and it will be the only song played on the radio until next August.

There's nothing as amusing as a Proper Music Fan having a fit of snobbish indignation. It's as if, because some stage-school karaoke kid is covering Hallelujah, they'll never again be able to light their scented candles and swoon away to Jeff Buckley's over-rated cover version.

Now that the smelling salts have been passed around and the intifada has quelled somewhat, it's perhaps worth noting that X Factoris a contrived soap opera for the feeble-minded. It has nothing to do with music.

Given the huge amounts of free publicity the show gives to the winner's single, it's entirely consistent that the puppet operators select a song that will sell and sell and sell, and swell the coffers of an already hugely profitable franchise.

As franchisees, the X Factorpeople realise that what happens in one country will usually replicate itself in another. Earlier this year, an American Idolbattery chicken/ contestant sang the ever-so-sanctified Hallelujahon the programme. Because American Idolis one of the most- viewed TV shows on the planet, the song gained a whole new commercial leg-up. People flocked to iTunes, found the Buckley version and bought it in such numbers that it went to number one in the Billboard download charts.

For Simon Cowell and his world-wide music empire, Hallelujahsimply means big box-office. Which is why this year's X Factorwinner will be spared the indignity of having to emote their way through another anaemic Mariah bloody Carey cover.

And on the great Jeff Buckley debate: his version isn't a cover of Cohen's original - it's a cover of John Cale's superior version.

The reason the Cale version is all but unknown is all down to crass film studio marketing. The producers of the mega-hit Shrekused Cale's version in the film but when it came to the soundtrack album he was bumped off in favour of Rufus Wainwright's rendition. Shrek, you see, was distributed by DreamWorks, which is also Wainwright's record label.

With a new Wainwright album due out shortly after Shrek'srelease, DreamWorks shoved him on the multi-million selling soundtrack as a profile-raising exercise, even though he had nothing to do with the film. Wainwright gets the phrasing all wrong on his cover. (And while I'm at it, he really should be punched in the face for his woeful cover of Raglan Road.)

What DreamWorks did to John Cale, X Factoris now doing to the song itself: acting on simple commercial instincts.

Still, there is one reason to be cheerful: everyone knows poor Leonard is stony broke, which is why he's gigging like an 18-year-old on speed these days. His ex-manager/ex-girlfriend cleaned out his bank account after he granted her power of attorney when he entered a Buddhist retreat. While Leonard was contemplating the meaning of life, she was contemplating a new sports car and a wardrobe full of Prada.

Leonard Cohen will make a small fortune out of the X Factornumber one. So you won't hear him complain about an X Factorwinner covering his song. In fact, he'd probably do the backing vocals if it meant more dosh for him.

bboyd@irish-times.ie