When it comes to covering classic songs, it’s important to bring enough originality to them that it’s worthwhile.
After all, there are certain songs that transport people so easily back to a certain place in time. Maybe it was a song they heard on a first date, or maybe it was the last song they listened to with a friend who left for a long time.
Regardless of the circumstances, anyone attempting to cover a song like that is going up against a lot of loyalty and potential resistance.
Still, when someone does a song justice in a new way, it completely re-opens our eyes to why we loved it in the first place.
That was the case in a recent performance on the French version of The Voice.
For anyone who doesn’t know, The Voice differs from other musical reality shows in a few key ways. For starters, the contestants have to do “blind auditions” for the judges, all of whom are turned around and can’t see them.
As they perform, the judges can hit their buzzers to turn around and try to recruit that person onto their team. While the contestants compete to win the show individually, the judges also compete amongst themselves to coach the best contestant and the best team.
The performance we’re talking about today took place on the show’s 2018 season.
Like any other audition, it started with the judges’ backs turned and the contestant walking out onstage.
The singer in question was a woman named Mennel Ibtissem. Before taking a deep breath, the background music to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” started playing and it was time to begin.
As anyone who knows the original song knows, “Hallelujah” is very distinctive as performed by Cohen—it is a breathy, nearly whispered song (though it has since been covered plenty of other ways as well). For her part, Ibtissem keeps that gentle quality but breathes her own unique tonality into it.
After just a few notes of it, one of the judges smashes her buzzer and turns around!
As she continues, Ibtissem’s voice gets more and more confident.
What’s most striking about the song aside from how beautiful and delicate her voice is is that she’s incredibly patient with the performance as well!
As an added twist, she also switches to singing in Arabic halfway through the song… and all of the judges are completely stunned! It’s clear Ibtissem has an amazing voice, but her stage presence is electrifying as well—especially her eyes!
When it’s all over, the crowd gives her a thunderous round of applause.
Although it’s been said before, it’s worth saying again: bringing a unique point-of-view to a song cover is so important!
Among famous songs, “Hallelujah” is definitely one of the most widely covered and re-interpreted. Still, with so many versions out there already, it only gets harder to differentiate any new ones from the pack.
Fortunately, Ibtissem’s distinctive stage presence and beautiful voice were able to find a new tack on it—and it earned her a four-chair turn on the show! Although there’s no telling where she’ll go from here, we’re all expecting big things.
Congratulations to Mennel Ibtissem on one of the best performances we’ve seen in a long time! Watch the full thing in the clip below:
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