Leonard Cohen: Classic or Dud

oh shit and then coming back to you

everything is all so good, wow leonard you've been there all along and I've finally noticed

:-)

when I saw him the 2nd time in london he had a few various positions songs in his set inc. night comes on!

marcos if you haven't already you need to hear the field commander cohen album

it is my desert island album probably

me + a couple of friends discovered i'm your man in high school and our callow instinct was to mock it (keyboards, 80s production, intensely serious vocals, this waltz this waltz this waltz this waltz) and put it on 4 lulz etc., but as time passed we realized we were listening to it all the time. it's the best. you know you can. i like its disreputable moments too (you can imagine how much i liked them then). turtle meat.

(was also obsessed at the time w "don't go home with your hard-on" -- this is a pretty sour song, in retrospect, isn't it, like contemporary dylan. what happened to arty singer-songwriters in the late 70s? just divorce? at least this has the grace iirc to also sound as sour as possible.)

Progress with Cohen was:

- Reading Suzanne in the Norton Anthology of Poetry in high school
- "Everybody Knows" in Pump Up The Volume
- "Ain't No Cure for Love" in Love at Large
- Buying a ticket last-minute to see him in 1993, knowing only those two songs. Still probably my epiphany concert of any.
- Ending up living in Montreal on a study grant, finding he has novels in addition to the rest. Devouring everything except Death of a Ladies Man, which I still haven't heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG9zED01DuA

"Paper Thin Hotel" is one of my fave lyrics ever

lately new skin has been the favorite

"New Skin" remains the ultimate! Was at a Newbury Comics on Sunday & an employee was playing it straight through, which was so unexpected & awesome.

Has been one of my favorite albums ever for 20 or so years. They're all great but "Field Commander Cohen" has always struck a nerve.

NYers, last weekend for this

https://thejewishmuseum.org/index.php/exhibitions/leonard-cohen-a-crack-in-everything

Loved this show ^^.

FWIW I really disliked the show. I think I just can't with art shows about musicians. It felt overly worshipful or something -- I didn't find anything all that engaging on its own merits in an artistic sense, the whole thing was just "WOW LEONARD COHEN GENIUS WOW." Although the thing with the mens choir was sort of fun.

was it the Conspiracy of Beards? (there can't be more than one all-Leonard Cohen men's choir...)

i thought it was mediocre too

xp no it was a video installation that included the mens choir from his synagogue on one screen and then a bunch of rando fans who I think responded to an ad on other screens in a different room

The best part of this show was the room with the slideshow of his self-portraits.

If you ever visit L.A. you can easily track down his old apartment here, the one where he was photographed on the front lawn for the cover of Old Ideas. I believe that apartment is where he passed away.

1033 S Tremaine Ave is the address.

my w1fe, who adored him, is bummed that she never knew he lived only three blocks away from her during her time living on Mansfield Ave at 8th St.

https://pitchfork.com/news/new-leonard-cohen-album-thanks-for-the-dance-announced-listen-to-the-goal/

already get the feeling from that short tune that it feels weird/wrong to consider it a "Leonard Cohen album"

dud

you're a dud

with due respect

He's good!.

Best mismatched inner sleeve EVER? pic.twitter.com/h0aS9K6g3B

— Laurie’s Planet of Sound (@lauriespos) November 9, 2019

Lol

I can picture Roger Sterling picking up both those records for his pad in 1972.

fuck New Skin For Old Ceremony is just devastating

so many good lines on "Happens to the Heart", album out today
https://open.spotify.com/track/2DkpoHJ1h88e9dyc6SFIm2?si=MHmybq37SN-uG5U0iWNIQw

new album is wonderful

Ranking his openers!

You Want it Darker is such a perfect opener.

I knew this thread had to exist. To me, he is THE classic, but he is definitely not for everyone--which makes him even more of a classic.

He might not be for everyone, en toto, but everyone likes at least something he's done. Like, who really besides him and Mariah Carey have had a song become a standard in the last few decades?

They do, but most often when it's done by someone else. Everyone loves the Jeff Buckley cover of Hallelujah, even though it's missing an entire stanza.

Dylan's Make You Feel My Love probably goes in there too, some big ass versions of that

I wasn't a big Leonard Cohen fan (of his own recordings that is) until I got the DVD Live in London. IIRC the audio is exactly the same as what was used for the CD of the same name, but I usually prefer live DVD's over CD's. Charmed the hell out of me, it sent me back to his earlier albums, but except for his debut and I'm Your Man, I had mixed feelings about how most of those albums were recorded, so the live DVD is still my favorite Cohen release. I also loved how his music was used in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, probably my favorite Altman film.

I was lucky enough to see him before he died, back in 2013. It was, and remains, the single best show I've ever been to. When he played "Famous Blue Raincoat," which is my favorite song, to start his second encore I felt that my concert going career was complete. Everything after is gravy.

And yes, seeing him live was another level from listening to his albums.

Agreed: Live In London is my favourite Cohen release, his Manchester Opera Show performance in the first week of his comeback tour is my favourite gig of all time, and the DVD is a wonderful record of the same tour.

Everyone loves the Jeff Buckley cover of Hallelujah, even though it's missing an entire stanza.

Never heard it. I've heard about a dozen other versions of it though.

I love cohen to the point that I have two Leonard-related prints in my flat, but speaking of that London gig (which I attended!) the fact that he was packing stadia at the end of his career shows that he was pretty well rated for a not-for-everyone fellow

Everyone has a Phil Spector story.

xp totally! Also Cohen returning to live performance due to his shitbag manager spending all of his money may be the greatest case of turning lemons into lemonade in rock history.

Those comeback shows were too smooth and Vegas-y for my liking. There were too many band introductions and too much scripted patter. I was lucky enough to see him in the 1980s and 1990s, which were much rawer and off-the-cuff affairs.

Love Cohen, but would gladly never hear Hallelujah again

Anyone see "Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song," 2021 movie doc . I have not yet. Just curious about