195. Leonard Cohen, "Songs of Leonard Cohen"

 


You know why older white male music critics absolutely love Leonard Cohen?  Because they think "I could do that!  I could write some stream-of-consciousness lyrics and then croak them out without really singing to a barely-audible guitar track!"  Leonard Cohen is a dreamcatcher for old white dudes.

As you may have divined, I have never understood Cohen's appeal.  I mean, I can appreciate a song like "Suzanne," the album's opener, for what it is.  It has a pleasant enough melody, if a little monotonous, and a good, sad vibe.  I also could learn to like "So Long, Marianne," which has some momentum and some verve.  Both of these songs feature female backing vocals, which might be part of why I like them because, for whatever Cohen is, a gifted and magnetic singer he is not.  Just listen to "The Stranger Song," in which he's not really singing at all, but more just like intoning.

I know I'm an outlier here and Cohen is now revered and considered a genius but I kind of agree with the reviewers of the time who thought it was pretty mediocre (Rolling Stone: "There are three brilliant songs, one good one, three qualified bummers, and three flaming shits").  It really does sound like a middle school teacher from upstate New York trying to make a Bob Dylan record.  (For the record, Cohen is Canadian and I mean no disrespect to the Canadian peoples.)

I don't have much more to say.  I don't want to roast Cohen or this record too much because I didn't have like a visceral recoiling hate response to it; I was more just like, "ugh, this blows."  So we'll agree to disagree.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Not mine.

Comments

  1. GGMarch 8, 2022 at 10:18 AM

    I LOVE Leonard Cohen but, like Bob Dylan, I think most of his appeal is in his lyrics and songwriting rather than in his actual performance of the songs. Covers of his songs are often better than the originals, IMHO (the "I'm Your Fan" covers album is one of my favorites). That being said, I think his albums are always an uneven mix of hits and clunkers, so it's a tough decision to say which should go on this list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TKMarch 8, 2022 at 1:18 PM

      I kinda had that feeling, but never really knew for sure (other than "Hallelujah," of course). Good to know.

      Delete

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