Leonard Cohen

Cohen's commercial comeback, this freakazoid mix of stabbing synths, fevered backup singers and brilliant songwriting introduced Montreal's monotone mystery man to a whole new generation. "First We Take Manhattan," "Ain't No Cure for Love," "Everybody Knows," "Tower of Song" and the title track – damn, what songwriter wouldn't kill to have written just one of those?

As second comings go, there probably isn't a less likely one than that of the Canadian poet
and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Though his kind of confessional romantic despair
would appear to be hopelessly passé in the Eighties, it has instead proved to be an
inspiration to a new generation of singer-songwriters, from Suzanne Vega to Morrissey,
who have taken a cue from his sardonic verse and brooding demeanor (if not his... More >

A European best-seller from the Francophone capital of the Western Hemisphere, Cohen isn't the grizzled folk-rock parvenu we take him for. He works a far older and more honorable tradition, that of the French chansonnier, the singing poet who'll cheerfully appropriate any simple music that fits his meter without giving a second thought to how authentic or commercialized it might be. Because words are his stock in trade, Cohen's music rarely obtrudes no matter how classy or schlocky its usages. So despite what some consider a misguided attempt to yoke stark instrumentation and femme chorus, his latest recording seems no more or less natural/unnatural than his previous offerings, and the poems are his most consistent in a decade. Envoi: "But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone/I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song." (Grade - A-)