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Flattery Most Sincere
By Bruce Dessau
Tribute albums usually flood in when an artist has died or gone into tax exile, but I'm Your Fan is different. Leonard Cohen is fifyish, alive, kicking and soon to release another record himself, but as a curtain-raiser this double album features a diverse collection of cover versions by a younger beat generation of artists including REM, the Pixies and James. Apart from a contribution from Cohen's contemporary, John Cale, the record reveals a new breed with a passion for the gruff melancholic Canadian whose existential bedsit angst was thought to have fallen from grace with the decline in sales of black polonecks and the ascendance of Café Hag.
The album was put together by the writers on France's answer to NME, Les Inrockuptibles. As deputy editor Emmanuel Telier explains, the idea came from Black Francis, lead singer of America's Pixies. "After we had done an interview with him, we were talking about records and he said one of his favourites was Cohen's last album, I'm Your Man. He said he'd bought it in a Spanish petrol station and then sang all the lyrics from start to finish." From there the writers began to approach artists when they interviewed them. The interest in the Canadian was remarkable. Talier's theory is that "Everybody likes Leonard Cohen, but everyone thinks he is an old hippy, so they don't want to admit it."
On this album, however, some of the hippest acts come out of the Cohen closet. Most of them blame it on their older siblings. Tim Booth of James recalls how "when I was 10, my sister made me listen to 'So Long, Marianne' with special instructions to pay attention to the lyrics." The same track made a lasting impression on former Triffid David McComb when he was growing up in Australia. Singer-songwriter Stephen Duffy has a more frank explanation: "I went to buy Slade Alive but I bought Songs of Leonard Cohen because it was cheaper."
The album is a mix of old and new songs. There was a scramble for the best-known laments, with James bagging "Marianne" and that definitive piece of coffee-shop crooning, "Suzanne", going to Geoffry Oryema. Many of the artists preferred tracks from 1988's I'm Your Man, which found Cohen in upbeat mood typified by his anti-Guru of Glum pose on the cover, clutching a banana. The Pixies sizzle their way through "I Can't Forget," Nick Cave turns "Tower of Song" into a rockabilly chug, REM tackle the mock-apocalyptic "First We Take Manhattan", and Bill Pritchard, an English singer who is unknown here but a veritable new-wave Johnny Halliday in France charms his way through the title track.
I'm Your Fan is anything but an exercise in nostalgia. It is more of a testament to the enduring power of one man and his guitar. Geoffrey Oryema rates Cohen's gift for melody alongside McCartney's, which is putting it rather strongly, but there is an affecting simplicity to Cohen's compositions that help them to transcend the pop divide. The last word should go to Lloyd Cole, who chose Cohen's ode to debauchery for fairly clear reasons. "I chose 'Chelsea Hotel' because the chords were the easiest."
I'm Your Fan is released this week by East West Records.
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