Idiots and Cover Songs

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that any band or artist who wants to cover songs should have to take a test to see if they have any fucking clue what the song's about before they're allowed anywhere near it.

Let's start with Mary J Blige's screw up of U2's One.
First of all, it sounds like she doesn't actually know the song and is sort of singing along behind Bono in totally the wrong tune with a complete disregard for the song's message.
This is not a long song, it's a song of peace. You shouldn't be singing it like it's to a lover; it's to an entire people.

Sheryl Crow's version of Sweet Child o' Mine is horrible. It's a love song for a woman, and unlike a lot of gender-free tracks, it just doesn't work with a woman's voice. And removing the one thing that defined that song (the big guitar riff) made it a complete shambles.

The same can be said about Madonna's take on American Pie. Now Madge of all people should understand music making by now. This is a sad song about Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens dying in a plane crash. The original has sad moments of contemplation and upbeat moments when remembering the music. It's clever. The Madonna version is completely bland and she's trying to make it all about her. Doesn't work.

Ronan Keating's Iris wasn't bad as such, it just lacked any of the balls that the Goo Goo Dolls original had. The percussion wasn't loud enough and his vocal felt a little flat. There was just something missing from that production.

And now we've got the new bloody X-Factor winner putting out an atrocity of a version of the otherwise beautiful track Hallelujah. The new one finishes with a key change and a gospel choir. A gospel fucking choir!
For anyone who doesn't know, this is a song full of hurt and irony. The lyrics talk about how God seems to have lost interest in us. The "hallelujah" part is mockery, not praise. So getting in a gospel choir is a complete disregard for what the song actually means!

I love gospel choirs normally. I want to write a song that uses one. They sound amazing and it adds a fantastic layer of emotion when done right. But it's not appropriate to have it in a song that is clearly about sticking a finger up to God. It just
doesn't
work.

The beauty of Hallelujah is in it's simplicty. It's sung quietly, it has a solo piano (or guitar) part. That's all it needs. It's melancholy and sort of despairing. Rufus Wainwright's version is my favourite, incidentally.
Normally I'm all about ending a song with a big section and I'm always trying to get the band to make our songs like that, but in this case it's not right.

What the song doesn't need is someone to try and sound sexy when they're singing it, constant money notes, a key change, massive ending and a complete lack of knowledge about what the song is about. I understand that reality TV show winners are merely puppets for the industry, but in this case the producer is as much to blame as she is.
I can't remember her name, I probably wouldn't bother writing it anyway. But this is inevitably going to be Xmas number one (they always are) and it's going to introduce a whole new generation of people to what is an utterly appalling version of a great song.

I only hope that the same thing happens with this as happened with Ronan's Iris - it caused far more people to pick up the original than bought the cover.