Comparison of Hallelujah

The word hallelujah means “Glory to God” and is also about the immaculate conception; however, in the song written by Leonard Cohen is about King David who killed the husband of the woman he lusted over. Many of the lines are symbolic in terms of David and the great sins of adultery and murder he committed. “Hallelujah” was written and recorded in 1984 and released on Leonard Cohen’s album Various Positions. Pentatonix is an American a capella group that made a cover of the song. Pentatonix’s version of the song is better than the original version.

The singing style of Pentatonix is more pleasing than Leonard Cohen’s. Pentatonix is a blend of five powerful voices. All of the voices blend and create amazing harmony. The singers connect their phrases making the song smooth. The voices vary in rage and the singers can hit high notes easily. Not many men can hit the notes or make the sounds of the four men in the band. Unlike the group, Leonard’s voice is low and raspy and low pitched. His singing style is choppy, and his voice can be shaky at times. The roughness of his voice does not suite the song as well as Pentatonix’s did.

Pentatonix took a different take on the song. They changed the original version of the song to fit their voices. The singers have various ranges of notes each one can hit. The singers made the song more modern and added harmony. The harmony is creative and has unpredictable chords. The notes of each part show off the ability of the powerful voices; for example, the men could hit really high notes and also low notes below the average bass. Leonard Cohen’s original version does not have as much harmony. It has only his voice part and no harmony. He only had harmony if he was performing and it was from his backup singers. Even then the song does not compare to the amount of harmony Pentatonix provides.