― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 29 May 2003 07:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:06 (twenty years ago) link
― j fail (cenotaph), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:11 (twenty years ago) link
It goes like this/the fourth, the fifth
― TMFTML (TMFTML), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:19 (twenty years ago) link
first few albums is classicz, sez I. "The Partisian" is fucking badass, even when 16 Horsepower covered it.
after all that, it gets a bit dodgy. the man should never have been introduced to the synthesizer. and "Don't Go Home With..." is a classic example whenever one needs to explain the concept of "overproduction" to a neophyte.
the funny bit: i got into the guy after hearing the snippet of "If It Be Your Will" that's played in "Pump Up the Volume".
― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:53 (twenty years ago) link
― Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link
― Baked Bean Teeth (Baked Bean Teeth), Friday, 9 January 2004 21:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Broheems (diamond), Friday, 9 January 2004 21:53 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 9 January 2004 21:55 (twenty years ago) link
Oh, CLASSIC btw, especially the first decade or so.
― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Friday, 9 January 2004 22:16 (twenty years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 9 January 2004 22:49 (twenty years ago) link
― anode, Friday, 9 January 2004 23:15 (twenty years ago) link
― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 10 January 2004 00:14 (twenty years ago) link
Suzanne is exempt from this, though. It's always great.
― cis (cis), Saturday, 10 January 2004 00:22 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 10 January 2004 05:28 (twenty years ago) link
my fave is typically whatever i'm listening to at the point but i tend to listen to "love and hate" and "new skin" most of all
― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 10 January 2004 17:58 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 10 January 2004 18:00 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 10 January 2004 18:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Baked Bean Teeth (Baked Bean Teeth), Saturday, 10 January 2004 20:59 (twenty years ago) link
The lyrics to Avalanche are sheer genius. Ditto fer Dress Rehearsal Rag, Susanne, Lady Midnight and Story Of Isaasc. He totally fuckin' rocks dude.
Also other great songwriters seem pretty inconcise or repetitive compared to Lenny the Great.
The arrangements are good to. The eighties stuff is kinda weird. Although Tower of Song has a nice production effect. At least he didn't go techno.
― Casper, Thursday, 1 July 2004 05:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 1 July 2004 07:26 (nineteen years ago) link
-- Leonard Cohen, Rolling Stone interview 2003.
― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 9 June 2005 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 9 June 2005 23:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― avery keen-gardner (avery keen-gardner), Saturday, 23 July 2005 22:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― Palomino (Palomino), Saturday, 23 July 2005 22:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― AaronK (AaronK), Sunday, 24 July 2005 04:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― stet (stet), Friday, 19 August 2005 00:54 (eighteen years ago) link
all-time classic, no doubt.
― barbarian cities (jaybob3005), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 10:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― corey c (shock of daylight), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 16:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Adam Harrison-Friday, Tuesday, 18 October 2005 19:04 (eighteen years ago) link
The ladyfriend is watching The Backwoods on TV now, which features a number of songs by Leonard (also features Gary Oldman...).
Got me back in the mood for him again.
― FTWWW (PappaWheelie V), Saturday, 14 February 2009 20:55 (fifteen years ago) link
I had the honor of interviewing him many years ago and what stuck out beyond his modesty was how when I transcribed the tape it read like third draft English. He spoke so eloquently and with a natural poetry. It didn't feel like a put on. He wasn't trying to be something or putting on airs (is that the right use of that word?). He was generous and really made it hard for me to interview a 20-something year old hipster after that without thinking, "listen, dude, you can't be giving me this much attitude if a man of LC's accomplishment can treat people with greater respect."
― smurfherder, Saturday, 14 February 2009 22:13 (fifteen years ago) link
jazz police amazing
― conrad, Sunday, 15 February 2009 00:10 (fifteen years ago) link
I had the honor of interviewing him many years ago and what stuck out beyond his modesty was how when I transcribed the tape it read like third draft English. He spoke so eloquently and with a natural poetry.
― schlump, Sunday, 15 February 2009 01:24 (fifteen years ago) link
When I see questions like this I always think of the Steve Wright gag: 'I got a tape for my car, Best of Music. I only like the first side.'Is there really anyone out there for whom Len is on side 2 of that tape?
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Sunday, 15 February 2009 20:19 (fifteen years ago) link
he just played a 3 1/2 hour show, pretty epic
― fucken cumlord (omar little), Sunday, 12 April 2009 07:35 (fifteen years ago) link
Love his music but it always bums me out when smart people fall for gurus.
― thirdalternative, Sunday, 12 April 2009 13:42 (fifteen years ago) link
He's a Buddhist monk. That hardly makes him the follower of some wacky new age guru.
Classic, of course. I'm Your Man is my favourite. I think Jazz Police is really funny. Great Thelonius Monk as derange cocktail bar pianist solo too.
Beautiful Losers is far and away the best novel ever written by a rock musician. Granted, the competition isn't exactly fierce, so let's put it another way: it's one of the best transgressive novels of the 1960s, up there with Burroughs, Trocchi, Baldwin et al and a great piece of postmodern fiction too.
― Stew, Sunday, 12 April 2009 15:14 (fifteen years ago) link
This thread SUCKS
― Hadrian VIII, Sunday, 12 April 2009 15:54 (fifteen years ago) link
uh, yeah.
leonard cohen is basically god. so there.
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 31 July 2010 01:46 (thirteen years ago) link
oh man, confession time...i've tried really hard, but makes my skin crawl....someone direct me to something to change my mind
― iago g., Saturday, 31 July 2010 01:49 (thirteen years ago) link
iago how much do you care about lyrics? I can't imagine anybody feeling more than "that's pleasant" about any LC unless they are very into lyrics.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, 31 July 2010 02:03 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, i haven't sit down and focused, just put it on and did other stuff...always figured the way in was the words.
― iago g., Saturday, 31 July 2010 02:06 (thirteen years ago) link
is it early stuff you've heard or later stuff? because I always kinda liked his so-called classic early stuff, but it wasn't til I dug into the 80s albums that I became convinced of his genius.
― tylerw, Saturday, 31 July 2010 03:39 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah I mean Leonard Cohen is specifically for people who are listening for the lyrics. The music can be quite compelling but it's only in the context of the lyrics.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, 31 July 2010 04:21 (thirteen years ago) link
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, July 30, 2010 9:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
i fucking hate this notion. lyrics and music ARE NOT TWO SEPARATE THINGS. they are fundamentally intertwined.
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 31 July 2010 06:56 (thirteen years ago) link
also the idea of people being uniquely "into lyrics" seems kind of absurd to me.
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 31 July 2010 06:57 (thirteen years ago) link
there's lots of ppl who dont care abt lyrics?
― just sayin, Saturday, 31 July 2010 09:40 (thirteen years ago) link
all i wanna say is that they don't really care about lyrics
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 31 July 2010 09:46 (thirteen years ago) link
I can picture Roger Sterling picking up both those records for his pad in 1972.
― file of unknown origin (bendy), Saturday, 9 November 2019 23:13 (four years ago) link
fuck New Skin For Old Ceremony is just devastating
― Suggest Banshee (Hadrian VIII), Sunday, 10 November 2019 22:23 (four years ago) link
so many good lines on "Happens to the Heart", album out todayhttps://open.spotify.com/track/2DkpoHJ1h88e9dyc6SFIm2?si=MHmybq37SN-uG5U0iWNIQw
― corrs unplugged, Friday, 22 November 2019 10:10 (four years ago) link
new album is wonderful
― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Friday, 22 November 2019 10:36 (four years ago) link
Ranking his openers!
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 17 October 2020 05:11 (three years ago) link
You Want it Darker is such a perfect opener.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 17 October 2020 12:21 (three years ago) link
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.
― jimbeaux, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 20:08 (two years ago) link
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?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 20:13 (two years ago) link
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.
― jimbeaux, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 20:28 (two years ago) link
Dylan's Make You Feel My Love probably goes in there too, some big ass versions of that
― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 23:47 (two years ago) link
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.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 20 January 2022 17:38 (two years ago) link
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.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 20 January 2022 17:55 (two years ago) link
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.
― mike t-diva, Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:00 (two years ago) link
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.
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Thursday, 20 January 2022 22:26 (two years ago) link
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
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 20 January 2022 22:48 (two years ago) link
Everyone has a Phil Spector story.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 20 January 2022 23:01 (two years ago) link
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.
― birdistheword, Friday, 21 January 2022 04:44 (two years ago) link
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.
― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Friday, 21 January 2022 07:59 (two years ago) link
Love Cohen, but would gladly never hear Hallelujah again
― Zelda Zonk, Friday, 21 January 2022 08:09 (two years ago) link
Anyone see "Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song," 2021 movie doc . I have not yet. Just curious about
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 23 June 2022 14:59 (one year ago) link
I have not but they're screening it at Film Forum in NYC and I believe Alan Light and Larry "Ratso" Sloman are doing separate discussion/Q&A's for it.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 23 June 2022 16:06 (one year ago) link
Had not heard of that, thanks!"Hallelujah" has been used in too many already-weepy scenes on TV, and is frequently over-sung, seems like. My favorite version is Willie Nelson's, where he seems to be thinking out loud:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58UjoiSP2wM
― dow, Thursday, 23 June 2022 16:10 (one year ago) link
Think he also does "Tower of Song" on his new alb, which I haven't heard yet---here's my fave cover of that, by Marianne Faithfull:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS_zzwLgTbE
― dow, Thursday, 23 June 2022 16:13 (one year ago) link
Stone cold "Famous Blue Raincoat"---this live rendition, from Living (1971), has been stuck in my head for most of my life, and will see me out, no doubt
― dow, Thursday, 23 June 2022 16:17 (one year ago) link
Damn, sorry!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE6e9n1HuuM
― dow, Thursday, 23 June 2022 16:18 (one year ago) link
classic voice, classic dictionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVp8JlT1oo0
― corrs unplugged, Thursday, 28 July 2022 09:28 (one year ago) link
this Blue Note tribute looks promising https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaKR_4S5O7U
― corrs unplugged, Friday, 29 July 2022 11:57 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugh8Xe6hX7U2009 interview so good
― calstars, Monday, 1 May 2023 22:43 (eleven months ago) link