Leonard Cohen albums poll

I love Ten New Songs as really perfect background music, it reminds me of ronan's deep dark slinky night music youtube thread, a bit. And yeah the songs are perfect for his live shows. I saw him a few years back play at a winery in the country at night and the whole thing was O_O

But I'd have to think about which LC album is actually my favourite.

Live In London would be my desert island LC album, and I also adore Cohen Live: Leonard Cohen In Concert. I like Leonard best when he's live.

I gained newfound appreciation for "A Thousand Kisses Deep" after The Good Thief used it so shrewdly.

Ignoring Jazz Police, I'll go for I'm Your Man, one of those albums where everything sounds like a standout. At least three of these are in my all-time Cohen top 10. Songs of Leonard Cohen and Songs of Love and Hate are the other two masterpieces. The Future has the most frustrating classic/dud collision.

First album's genius only fully hit me when I saw McCabe and Mrs Miller, where these incredibly specific, detailed songs he'd written years earlier somehow seemed to have been tailor-made for those characters.

anagram mostly right - except for New Skin. I had a flatmate who would only allow that album of Cohen's to get played, so I kind of got used to it. And 'is this what you wanted' is great! I mean:

You were Marlon Brando,
I was Steve McQueen.
You were K.Y. Jelly,
I was Vaseline.
You were the father of modern medicine,
I was Mr. Clean.
You where the whore and the beast of Babylon,
I was Rin Tin Tin.

And I've always loved 'leaving green sleeves':

I sang my songs, I told my lies,
to lie between your matchless thighs.
And ain't it fine, ain't it wild
to finally end our exercise

Then I saw you naked in the early dawn,
oh, I hoped you would be someone new.
I reached for you but you were gone, so lady I'm going too.

i don't think death of a ladies man is the bees knees, and i hope it never gets unduly elevated in the cohen canon b/c of some challopsy fans, but no way is it horrible or terrible full stop. at the very least, it is an interesting experiment.

i like death of a ladies man just for its singularity in Cohen's catalog. such a crazy left turn, in terms of how he made records. don't know whether the songs are up to his usual standard, but it's entertaining! i've played it for people who don't like the earlier stuff and gotten a good response.

songs of love and hate is maybe my favorite album of all time so i guess that

NSFW (naked lady)

http://1heckofaguy.com/2011/02/02/more-about-leonard-cohens-hollywood-ymca-t-shirt/

this poll is gonna be all over the place

yeah i have no idea what to vote for tbh

I'm leaning toward Live In London because 1) it's great and 2) it covers all these other great albums

I'm still really tempted to vote Recent Songs, but the songwriting on Various Positions is really my favorite. Basically I think he's writing at a Yeats level there (really).

"If It Be Your Will" is my favorite Cohen song.

who can guess which one I'm voting for

Yeah, it's just an amazing poem and an amazing song.

Deets on its form:

Spenserian stanza: verse form that consists of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by a ninth line of six iambic feet (an alexandrine); the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. The first eight lines produce an effect of formal unity, while the hexameter completes the thought of the stanza. Invented by Edmund Spenser for his poem The Faerie Queene (1590–1609), the Spenserian stanza has origins in the Old French ballade (eight-line stanzas, rhyming ababbcbc), the Italian ottava rima (eight iambic pentameter lines with a rhyme scheme of abababcc), and the stanza form used by Chaucer in his “Monk’s Tale” (eight lines rhyming ababbcbc). A revolutionary innovation in its day, the Spenserian stanza fell into general disuse during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was revived in the 19th century by the Romantic poets—e.g., Byron in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Keats in “The Eve of St. Agnes,” and Shelley in “Adonais.”

who can guess which one I'm voting for

you're my man

Voted "Songs of Leonard Cohen"

Peter Glaze's on Crackerjack, back in the day?
"You were in love but you needed proof
You climbed up a ladder to the roof
You fell off and a full bucket landed onto yer..."

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 2 September 2005 10:50 (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't see any clunkers on Various Positions. Love all the lesser-known songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucIS3TEAfsw

"Coming Back To You" is a beaut, isn't it

I've got to have your word on this
or none of it is true
And all I've said is just instead
of coming back to you

And since she spoke the truth to me
I tried to answer truthfully
Whatever happened to my eyes
Happened to your beauty
Happened to your beauty
What happened to your beauty
Happened to me

in full command of every plan you wrecked - my favourite :)

is there anybody who really likes Dear Heather? i never listened to that one...

I love the song Dear Heather, if that counts...

yeah there are some good songs on it, and nothing on it is unlistenable. it's just kind of incoherent and some of it is a bit slapdash. it's respectable.

has anyone bought that complete studio albums box set that came out last year? not complete anymore, i guess. anyway, was wondering if the remastering on death of a ladies man is any good -- don't think that one's been worked on since the beginning of the CD era.

drop a tweet or note to a. begrand - I know he got it because he wrote about it.

I asked him on twitter.

has anyone bought that complete studio albums box set that came out last year? not complete anymore, i guess. anyway, was wondering if the remastering on death of a ladies man is any good -- don't think that one's been worked on since the beginning of the CD era.

― tylerw, Thursday, February 2, 2012 2:22 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

probably not. i don't think they are doing new masters for any of these box sets. plus, they are ugly.

As far as I am aware only the first 3 LP's have been remastered. The rest are just the standard issue releases.

Oh, I voted for 'New Skin' by the way.

hm, too bad about the death of a ladies man disc, would be curious to hear it w/ a fresh remaster. such a murky album (mostly in a good way). i sort of expected that at some point, cohen's demos for ladies man (which must've existed at some point) would emerge on a deluxe edition. would be cool to hear those songs as cohen originally presented them to spector.

I've never heard a Cohen demo of anything, but since some of the songs took years to finish, I'm guessing they exist.

I've read some of the 99 verses that didn't make it into "Democracy", and they're as good as the ones that stayed.

yeah i guess i've never heard cohen demos either -- just seems like with that record, cohen would've had versions of those songs that he gave to spector and then spector went nutso w/ 'em. Maybe I'm wrong?

I've only heard the first three (all pretty great) and I'm Your Man (never really got into, found the production really off-putting). I'd go with the debut without hesitation.

Not being a Leonard Cohen fan, I really enjoy Death of a Ladies' Man.

has anyone bought that complete studio albums box set that came out last year? not complete anymore, i guess. anyway, was wondering if the remastering on death of a ladies man is any good -- don't think that one's been worked on since the beginning of the CD era.

― tylerw, Thursday, February 2, 2012 2:22 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

probably not. i don't think they are doing new masters for any of these box sets. plus, they are ugly.

actually all the albums in that box are remastered versions

really? remastered beyond the recent masters?

also let's be honest this is fucking beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDemnguRYj4

I mean that the first three albums were reissued w/new remasters and bonus tracks in, what, 2007? those neat little hardback book editions. maybe there was a project to do the same for all the back catalogue but it seems to have stalled. and yes, I believe all of them are remastered (even the recent ones) except for the first three (which are the same as the 2007 remasters, but without the bonus tracks).

all of them in the complete studio albums box, I mean

and to complicate matters still further, there is also a "complete columbia albums" box which includes the live albums as well. these are also remastered.

yeah i guess i've never heard cohen demos either -- just seems like with that record, cohen would've had versions of those songs that he gave to spector and then spector went nutso w/ 'em. Maybe I'm wrong?

― tylerw, Monday, 6 February 2012 15:59 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are a few alt versions on the last set of reissues, of the first few recs - a diff dress rehearsal rag, a song called 'in the store room' which shed a little light. & chelsea hotel #1 on the live in israel bootleg, just after he wrote it w/a bunch of extra verses, is crucial.

I don't know about demos for DOALM but they recorded like twice as many songs so there are a half dozen tracks somewhere maybe hidden in a cave beneath Phil Spector's crazy mansion.

those would be fun to hear. there's probably a good screenplay to be based on those sessions. but considering cohen's opinion of the album and spector's um situation, an expanded version of the album is unlikely. guess some bootlegger needs to go digging in phil's backyard!

DOALM outtakes?!? gimme

huh wikipedia sez: 15 songs were written by the two over a course of three weeks, and Spector described it as "some great fuckin' music". Not everyone agreed with this assessment, preferring Cohen's earlier acoustic folk music to the jazz-, rock- and even funk-influenced arrangements. Among the seven unknown outtakes is probably "Do I Have to Dance All Night"

yes Leonard, you do have to dance all night

i agree with these results but i think ten new songs should have at least ten votes

interesting, say more about that

10ns is a masterpiece

I probably wouldn't have voted for it but 0 is painful

I like five of the Ten New Songs but it's one of those times I thought getting someone else to write the music -- even if that person is Sharon Robinson -- produced a lethargic record.

I think I said upthread (and many years ago) something to the effect that 10 New Songs is his best mood music album, and the lethargic quality actually feeds into that a lot. I think that dynamic of barbed, whispered lullabyes over soft somnambulant keyboards on the one hand seems like a kind of hack's idea of late era cohen, but on the other, well, sometimes I like to be fed lines by hacks.

Obviously the last few albums have also leaned hard into that post-I'm Your Man noirish sound, but none with the same air of massaged consistency that I'm sure many find boring. But it's probably the Cohen album I reach for most often (translation: I am old and sad and need comforting).

i love the ten new songs vibe. a thousand kisses deep was used to great effect in 'the good thief', which is the first time i heard cohen from that particular style, having really only known his acoustic work and a few choice '80s cuts.

tim otm, there's an aesthetic continuity to it that's kinda like being folded up in velvet; it's what i want from the future but that record distracts from it with its covers. i also think "in my secret life" and "alexandra leaving" are unmatched in his catalog, as songs and as poems; they're in many ways his most crisp compositions, a style he arrived at imo by way of "anthem" and "tower of song," and which he continued to build on in the last run of records

a bit from me this am:

Ten new songs, recorded virtually alone in his house, whispering so as not to disturb the neighbours, the sprechgesang never more intimate, and how one song comes back to haunt another, both written in common meter (amazing grace how sweet the sound) so you know it's really One Old Song.

which I guess was my way of saying tim otm, though I couldnt have known it at the time

Every song y'all praised on TNS wold be a keeper, and "In My Secret Life" and "A Thousand Kisses Deep" are all time. Also:

a thousand kisses deep was used to great effect in 'the good thief',

otm. I can't think of the song w/out remembering the movie (which deserves more love btw).

A great line I had forgotten from "That Don't Make It Junk" (on 10 New Songs):

"I fought against the bottle... but i had to do it drunk."

Such a beautiful song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU5FPAR7ass

indeed

What's wrong with Jazz Police? It's eccentric and likeable.

it's a bit noisy

"Jazz Police" and "Boogie Street" are two rare duds for me.