Agreed about the song, but I'd lean toward the Rufus Wainwright version, partly for Brokieish reasons (as you know, Rufus Wainwright sings on the BBM soundtrack). Also because I started really loving this song when my sons and I used to listen to the
Shrek CD -- which actually is a good soundtrack album overall, by the way, and that's the best song on it.
Just noticed in a quick googling that while the soundtrack CD uses Rufus Wainwright's cover, the movie uses the Jeff Buckley version, apparently because Wainwright was an artist for DreamWorks and there were licensing issue
Newsweek ranked 60 covers of "Hallelujah" -- Rufus Wainwright's is No. 3, Jeff Buckley's is No. 2, John Cale's is No. 1.
It's an interesting list. It's been covered by pretty much every singer ever -- Bob Dylan! Celine Dion! Bono! Neil Diamond! Jon Bon Jovi! K.D. Lang! (her version is pretty good), and apparently every
American Idol singer ever. Some of them are accompanied by recordings, though most -- thankfully, it sounds like -- are not. I'd like to hear the Dylan one; he apparently sang it "as an uptempo blues-rock shuffle," but the link
Newsweek provides is broken.
Interestingly, Cohen's version is No. 8, and not flatteringly described by
Newsweek, which calls "Hallelujah," like "All Along the Watchtower," one of those songs for which a cover is better than the original. They're right about both!
Newsweek says it's fun to play Cohen's version out of context to someone who knows the song, and they'll go, "Who is this guy and why is he wrecking this song?" It also offers this funny story: "One anecdote has him [Dylan] asking Cohen how long it ["Hallelujah"] took to write, to which the singer replied, “A couple of years.” Cohen asked the same of Dylan’s “I and I” and Dylan replied, “Fifteen minutes.”
http://www.newsweek.com/60-versions-leonard-cohens-hallelujah-ranked-303580
