It has been a full week since Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris premiered their version of Leonard Cohen's "Halllujah" on the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon, which aired last Friday night (January 22) and raked in tens of millions of dollars for relief in Haiti. The Timberlake/Morris "Hallelujah" spent a few days at the top of the iTunes singles chart (it's in second place right now, behind Ke$ha's juggernaut "Tik Tok") and it helped propel the accompanying Hope for Haiti Now album to the top spot on the Billboard album chart.
Late in the day on Thursday (January 28), we took a look at the some of the best versions of "Hallelujah," which was originally recorded by Cohen but has since been reworked countless times by a wide variety of people. We asked the crowd which one of the versions of "Hallelujah" was the best among the 10 we presented, and the results were a little bit surprising.
Despite the fact that Jeff Buckley's version is a sentimental favorite and Timberlake and Morris' is currently buzzed-about, it was Cohen's original that scored the best among responders, taking home 36 percent of the vote. John Cale sat in second place with 27 percent (an excellent showing for the former Velvet Underground member) and the Timberlake/Morris collaboration landed in third with 24 percent. Shockingly, Buckley's revered cover only scored 10 percent of the vote.
Tragically, the excellent version by Bob Dylan didn't score a single vote, and nobody voted for Fall Out Boy, either (though their "version" isn't really a cover at all, so it's understandable). But it's disappointing that nobody showed any love to Gepe, who recorded a Spanish version of the song for the movie "Sugar." It's currently streaming at his MySpace page, and it's totally worth checking out, even if you don't speak Spanish.
The "Hallelujah" poll is still open, so you can still vote here! And leave your thoughts on "Hallelujah" in the comments.