Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) recorded ‘Hallelujah’ for his 1994 album Grace, and his aching, guitar-led reading became so beloved — especially after his death in 1997 — that it is now the version most people carry in their heads. The quiet twist is that Buckley learned the song from John Cale’s 1991 recording, not from Cohen; his is a cover of a cover. The performance is genuinely his own and genuinely great; the only error is mistaking it for where the song began.