From the Mind of Meegs

Yesterday, I read a rather interesting article about how Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" reached the #1 spot on the iTunes download charts, almost 15 years after its release. The reason? Buzz surrounding American Idol contestant Jason Castro's rendition a few weeks back. Vive le power of American Idol!

The article rehearses the now familiar story of the song. Leonard Cohen wrote it and no one cared. Then John Cale covered it and people cared a little. Then Jeff Buckley covered it and everyone cared a WHOLE lot and decided that the world would also benefit from their own rendition of the song. Cue billions of subsequent covers, and a happy honeymoon for the song as the go-to number whenever a TV show or movie needs to invoke a mood best categorized as plaintive.

American Idol has done some really fascinating things for TV, and some really fascinating things for pop culture. But the list of fascinating things it's done for music is rather short. So, yes, it is notable that we can now add one more accomplishment to that list. The power of American Idol is a force for absurdity (in that intriguing, postmodern sort of way...not in the "life has no meaning" sort of way), but for once they've harnessed that power for something that makes a whole lot of sense. It defies logic that an entire generation would pass by without being immersed in the greatness that is "Hallelujah."

So, while I'm grateful to American Idol for this one gift, I'm not buying the implications that the song, absent AI's intervention, might have gone down to that place where great songs go to die. For starters, there is no such place. Great songs are great because they endure, and they endure because they are great.

Plus, it didn't help that the lone fan quote they use comes from a 37-year-old. I mean--really? I can endorse 16-year-old fangirls just now discovering a great song, but it's just embarrassing if you're 37 and don't know the song. It's even more embarrassing if you're 37, don't know the song, and then allow yourself to be quoted as not knowing the song, supposing all the while that you now seem really cool for being in the vanguard of this phenomenon when really you just sound like an ass.

I weep for our society.