Cohen

droid

droid

Well-known member
Ultimate folk faker & sophomore poetry PUA / Master of morose verse / Quixotic minor league 60's irrelevance.

How does Dissensus rate this inhabitant of a million candle singed bedsit record shelves?

Sorry to see him go personally. He had something.

RIP
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Had a beautiful post-rave evening on Sunday listening to him and Scott Walker with Mrs. Tea in the pitch dark, with a glass of good scotch and a little ketamine. First time we'd listened to him in ages and we felt slightly as if we'd killed him when we found out. Somewhat worried about Scott now.

Can't say I know his oeuvre intimately well but there is a certain world-weary romanticism and humour there that's all his own.
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
The original Hallelujah by him works because its a gospel record at its core, all the goofy covers dragged them off to the side into jaunty folk and destroyed the original intent (though Rufus Wainright's version might be the best).

The saga of him stopping studying Zen to record with a severely alcoholic Phil Spector who came up with the idea of making Leonard a drunken playboy and spent all of the recording whipping out guns is anecdotal heaven.
 
firefinga

firefinga

Well-known member
droid said:
Sorry to see him go personally. He had something.

RIP
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THIS, ^^

Would never buy any of his music (nor dl it from wherever) but was one of the more mainstream leaning singers I could bear hearing on daytime radio/at a pub.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
'On Land', 'Low', 'Songs of Leonard Cohen', 'Seventeen seconds'

My top 4 back-in-the-day-working-late-flipped-over-repeatedly-quiet-nighttime-LPs.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
I know he's seen as a cliche of moroseness due to his delivery (which I dont think is really fair given the wild romance of the first two LPs), but from songs of love and hate on he slipped into some seriously dark, dissolute nihilism - belied in some ways by his vocal schtick.
 
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droid

droid

Well-known member
Dylan on Cohen:

“When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius,” Dylan said. “Even the counterpoint lines—they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music. Even the simplest song, like ‘The Law,’ which is structured on two fundamental chords, has counterpoint lines that are essential, and anybody who even thinks about doing this song and loves the lyrics would have to build around the counterpoint lines.

“His gift or genius is in his connection to the music of the spheres,” Dylan went on. “In the song ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ for instance, the verses are four elemental lines which change and move at predictable intervals . . . but the tune is anything but predictable. The song just comes in and states a fact. And after that anything can happen and it does, and Leonard allows it to happen. His tone is far from condescending or mocking. He is a tough-minded lover who doesn’t recognize the brush-off. Leonard’s always above it all. ‘Sisters of Mercy’ is verse after verse of four distinctive lines, in perfect meter, with no chorus, quivering with drama. The first line begins in a minor key. The second line goes from minor to major and steps up, and changes melody and variation. The third line steps up even higher than that to a different degree, and then the fourth line comes back to the beginning. This is a deceptively unusual musical theme, with or without lyrics. But it’s so subtle a listener doesn’t realize he’s been taken on a musical journey and dropped off somewhere, with or without lyrics.”
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C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Yeah, I remember reading a Dylan biography way back and both of them had like a 'cold war'. When Dylan gets into Gospel, Cohen would ask anyone "WHAT'S HIS GAME, WHY WOULD HE DO THIS?"
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I've always had a soft spot for him. Hate that song Hallelujah though, it would obviously be that one that gets covered by thousands of people. There is a point arising from that though - although he did loads of good songs, he also did some right stinkers and that shouldn't be ignored. I think most of them would be improved without that woman who always comes in and over-interprets it about half way through.
Something strange about the way he swapped the simple voice-with-a-guitar sound for the voice-with-cheap-keyboard sound. In one sense it's the same thing made more modern, but in another sense it's a change from something that is seen as kind of pure and authentic to the most plastic sound possible.
 
Q

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
"I'm Your Man" is a great album and was inspirational to me to show that people can do some of their major work in their middle age
 
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