There was an album of cohen covers, and whoever didd it on that did a pretty good version

John Cale (also the version they use, bizarrely, in Shrek). This is the best version I've heard. I can't listen to either of Cohen's - he over-emotes on both, and on the live version he's not actually singing (hasn't been for a while now). Rufus Wainwright's (the version they use, even more bizarrely, on the Shrek soundtrack album) is just pretty.

Tim Buckley did singing-like-Tim-Buckley amazingly well, and he does it amazingly well on his version of Hallelujah; it's a magical performance. But I think it's a performance by a performer much more than it's a performance of a song. Also, to my mind he was just too young - it's a bruised, jaded, middle-aged song, I always feel. (Tim Buckley aged 40 singing Hallelujah... what might have been eh?)

John Cale hits the notes and sings the words like they mean something to him, which they probably do. His version is spare and bleak - jaded and middle-aged - but held up by that beautiful, never-ending, rolling piano part beneath it. It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah - but it's still a hallelujah.

I hope never to hear the version by this Alexandra person. (Key change? That song needs a key change like Simon Cowell needs assertiveness training.) I'll probably be disappointed.