Man, Jeff Buckley was so fucking awesome.

[Bob Roberts]

I can shamefully admit I hadn't listened to any Buckley stuff in a while before that kid on American Idol sang "Hallelujah" a couple of weeks ago. That got me back into him though and I've been listening to his stuff a lot since then.

"Last Goodbye" is such an amazing song. I get goosebumps when he hits those high notes near the end.

[Benji]

Buckley is about as depressing as music gets to be honest, even his more upbeat music makes you want to kill yourself. That's not a bad thing necesarilly, it just shows how powerful his voice was, even if he wasn't dead it'd be haunting. I see Buckley and Gavin DeGraw as the two sides of the same singer-songwriter for some reason, where Buckley's voice is the dark and depressing, DeGraw's is powerful and uplifting.

[ROC]

I can shamefully admit I hadn't listened to any Buckley stuff in a while before that kid on American Idol sang "Hallelujah" a couple of weeks ago. That got me back into him though and I've been listening to his stuff a lot since then.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I can shamefully admit I hadn't listened to any Buckley stuff in a while before that kid on American Idol sang "Hallelujah" a couple of weeks ago. That got me back into him though and I've been listening to his stuff a lot since then.

ARGH, AMERICAN IDOL. Eh, at least you listened to him before the AI bit, though.

.. Damn American Idol for exposing people to music?

[ROC]

I can shamefully admit I hadn't listened to any Buckley stuff in a while before that kid on American Idol sang "Hallelujah" a couple of weeks ago. That got me back into him though and I've been listening to his stuff a lot since then.

ARGH, AMERICAN IDOL. Eh, at least you listened to him before the AI bit, though.

[MalaCloudy Black]

My general rule is "any exposure is good exposure", and what in America leads to more exposure than AI?

[Liam]

Buckley is awesome. 'Opened Once' is probably my favourite song he did, personally. That or 'Lover, You Should Have Come Over'.

[YI]

...hang on...people don't know who Jeff Buckley is? I was having a conversation with a full on scally about him a few weeks ago...granted he didn't have all his facts straight ("yeah, he killed himself daint he"), but he knew a few tunes and shit. And most people would either 'recognise' the name, or I'd have thought, definately heard of "Hallelujah". He's just got one of those names you always hear tossed about.

And a while back we had a "Hallelujah" cover thread...well here's a cover I found by David Bazan (Pedro The Lion/Headphones);

http://htfafsongs.com/Bazan%20-%20Grey%20E...0hallelujah.mp3

He is the dullest motherfucker in indie music, I swear...amazing beard though.

Edited March 17, 2008 by YI

[Skummy]

Jeff Buckley was one of my first musical loves...he was basically the artist who took me from being someone who quite liked music to a full-blown music lover. I obsessed over him for the better part of two years, and I own pretty much everything he's ever recorded.

He opened my eyes to a lot of stuff I might not have checked out otherwise; The Smiths (in part, at least), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Tim Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Bad Brains, Soul Coughing, Those Bastard Souls....all sorts of stuff. He took me from a teenage metalhead to just wanting to listen to anything and everything I could.

Anyway, my favourite songs of his are probably "Lover, You Should've Come Over", "Forget Her", "Grace" and recently I've really grown to love "Everybody Here Wants You", which I'd never been too fond of before. Oh, and the "road version" of "Eternal Life" is fucking bad-ass.

His voice is, obviously, incredible, but I think because of that his musical and songwriting talent aren't appreciated nearly enough, perhaps also because one of his most famous songs is a cover version.

I don't really find him depressing at all, though, if anything I find him one of the more uplifting artists out there. Even his more downbeat seeming lyrics like "drink a bit of wine we both might go tomorrow" seem more a celebration of life and a call to live in the moment than they do a morbid expression or anything, and the more depressing songs like "Lover, You Should've Come Over" tend to have a glimmer of hope like "it's not too late". I think he's a lot of things, but depressing doesn't even come close, in my opinion.

...hang on...people don't know who Jeff Buckley is?

There are plenty of people who don't know who he is, plenty of people I know had never heard of him, but then people I might not expect to have heard of him have, which is interesting. What surprised me was last year meeting someone who really disliked him, which I found odd, as he strikes me as someone you'd either like or be indifferent towards, I couldn't imagine anyone actively hating him.

"yeah, he killed himself daint he"

Predictably, amongst Jeff Buckley fans, there are arguments to suggest as such. I would say they're all bullshit.

Edited March 17, 2008 by Skummy

[METALMAN]

I like nearly all of Jeff Buckley's songs. To anyone that doesn't have it, I'd recommend getting the "Mystery White Boy" live album. It's not the best sound quality but it shows what a great performer he was. It's worth it for the cover of I Know It's Over alone.

My all time favourite Buckley song would be a tie between Eternal Life, Last Goodbye and Grace.

[Skummy]

Mystery White Boy is incredible, as well as the DVD from the same tour (I think you can buy them as a two-in-one now), and yeah the Hallelujah/I Know It's Over medley is beautiful. There's also a straight cover of I Know It's Over available on the otherwise completely pointless "Best Of" compilation, whatever it's called. The "Live In Chicago" DVD is great, just to see how phenomenal and intense he could be live, and how easily he could jump around from genre to genre without alienating the crowd...I don't know anyone else that could move so well from a cover of "Kick Out The Jams" into "Lilac Wine".

My favourite live recording of him, though, is "Live At L'Olympia". While bits of it aren't overly spectacular, and the recording quality isn't at its best (sometimes gets lost in crowd noise), it manages to capture him pretty well, as you get a lot of the humour that's missing from his studio work. "Lilac Wine" on that album is stunning, though, one of the most beautiful live tracks you'll ever hear. The extended "Legacy Edition" release of "Live At Sin-é" is pretty good for a more intimate live show, as its just him with no backing band, and its interesting to hear embryonic versions of tracks that would find their way onto Grace - same goes with the album he did with Gary Lucas of Captain Beefheart, which features a horribly out-of-place harmonica solo towards the end of "Grace". There's some bootleg stuff out there of Buckley's work with Lucas' Gods & Monsters too, which features an even odder version of "Grace" with harmonica solo intact and some odd Beefheart-esque bass, as well as some clumsy blues numbers, and a stunning version of Tim Buckley's "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain", which was basically the music world's introduction to Jeff Buckley.

[thuganomic]

Just an interesting note. From wikipedia.

"On March 7, 2008, Buckley’s version of the Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah”, went to number 1 on the iTunes chart after being performed by Jason Castro on the seventh season of the television series American Idol."

Never underestimate the power of reality television.

[Hobo]

The genealogy of Buckely's version of Hallelujah odd, it's more a cover of John Cale's (far superior to Buckely's in my opinion) version of Leonard Cohen's song. I just can't like it. No matter how many times I hear it.

That said I do like one or two of Buckley's songs. But when I want to listen to Hallelujah I got to John Cale or back the source. I have the same issue with Steve Earle's song 'Galway Girl' which has gained a lot of popularity in Ireland through a cover by Mundy.