"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Pitchfork by Mike Powell, February 1, 2012
7.4 rating
Old Ideas is, in its own tender, smirking, Leonard Cohen-y way, a clever title. In one sense, the ideas here are ones we've heard from Cohen before: Life is a nostalgic, sorrowful experience punctuated by the occasional joke; language can clarify as much as it can obscure; and lust is one of the highest forms of prayer. In another sense, Cohen is telling us that the ideas on this album-- home, healing, origins, and endings-- are ideas that take on a starker, more metaphorical weight as time goes on. We can trust Cohen to know: Over the past 77 years, he has, in a graceful but inevitable way, become old.
Cohen's voice has always sounded deep, flat, and naturalistic-- the kind of performance that attempts to sound like it's no performance at all. To describe the changes in it over the past 10 or 15 years, I defer in part to those little booklets that come around the necks of good Scotch: A powerful body of peat smoke with a briny finish. In essence, a whisper-- the voice of a voice whose center has been carved away. Old Ideas doesn't remind me of Bob Dylan as much it does of late Johnny Cash records, or even Charlie Louvin's Steps to Heaven: documents of voices so heavy and close that to hear them is to smell the singer's breath and see the gradient of yellow on their teeth.
It's easy to think of Cohen as a folksinger since "folksinger" is common shorthand for musicians who tend to privilege words over music. Cohen, though, tends to go where his musical collaborators and arrangers lead him, whether it's grimy dive-bar ballads, disco, bare-bones guitar blues, or orchestral elaborations. For a Zen monk who started his career as a poet, Leonard Cohen has used a lot of synth horns.
Old Ideas is a spare, low-key album rooted in blues and gospel-- maybe the closest thing he's made to "folk" music since the early 1970s. Backup singers sing passionate, wordless melodies; the bass sounds like the big, upright kind. I think it's his first studio album in 20 years to not rely exclusively on drum machines for percussion. The musical setting suits the state of his voice, which is meant as a mixed compliment: One of the great things about hearing his 1980s and 1990s albums was trying to reconcile his heroic presence with all the Casios. Some of the best moments on Old Ideas-- like the bizarre foregrounding of synthesizer during the album's first thirty seconds-- prove that Cohen and his collaborators have the wits to remind listeners that as soon as tape is rolling, nothing-- no croak, no wail, no plea-- is all-natural.
Cohen's voice alone, though, is a gorgeous, singular instrument. It carries in it a quality that is difficult to discuss without either becoming sentimental or appealing to the misguided idea that just because you play an acoustic guitar or sing close to the microphone, what you do is more honest than someone who attempts to create an experience of truth in some other way. It's a voice that mimics states of human yearning: The point at which we start to sound too tired or worn-down to speak, the point at which we start to cry, the way we whisper to people whom we are very, very close.
Maybe it's only context that makes me think that songs such as "Show Me the Place", where his voice becomes so weak it nearly falls silent in the middle of a line, is anything more than maudlin. Maybe the past 40-plus years of music serve as some kind of apology, as though to publicly reckon with the fact that according to the World Bank you are fast approaching life expectancy is something Cohen-- or any human being-- needs to earn their right to.
This is not the best album Cohen has put out. It is also not The Bucket List-- certainly not cheap or trivial or trading on his age alone. The songs are decent, the singing is stunning. He claims to be naked and filthy. He claims to be a lazy bastard. He claims to have been a slave for love. But he has claimed these things before. He is as old as he has ever been.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (Sony)"
Collapse Board by Scott Creney, February 1, 2012
By anyone else's standards, this album might be considered a work of genius -- or whatever adjective people use to describe Will Oldham these days. And though Cohen fans will be pleased with it, there's nothing here to entice the uninitiated. It's starting to look like Leonard Cohen may never surprise us again.
That "brief elaboration of a tube" line is pretty brilliant, the way it implies blood vessels and nerve endings, fallopian tubes and penises. The way he sings, it's not hard to imagine that the home he speaks of is a grave, that the song is a eulogy delivered to the self. It is, by some distance, the best song on Old Ideas.
Not to say the rest of the album is horrible, but it's nothing special. There's nothing as unexpectedly lewd as 'Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On', as surreally mysterious as 'The Partisan', or as musically surprising as the entirety of I'm Your Man was at the time it came out. Old Ideas isn't terrible, but it isn't particularly great either.
'Darkness' is okay until the shitty house band from some late-night show starts busting out the organ solos. At which point, I start to imagine that when Cohen sings, "I've got the darkness", he's singing about The Darkness.
Come to think of it, "I believe in a thing called love", sounds like a line Cohen might have written, though when he sang it he would have emphasized the thing part instead of the love.
Anyway, LC follows the template he's been following for the last 20 years. He's still peddling his bedroom songs for the educated letch. The music is still soft and understated, accompanied by shuffling brushed percussion, reflective and hushed. He's still more persona than person, singing as someone who has seen it all, wiser than God and certain he has better stories. He's still accompanied by anonymous female backup singers -- a chorus, a colony of delicate white angels. As for Cohen himself, he still sings in that same skeletal croak, with the same stoic emotionalism.
His language is the same comingling of the sacred and profane. For a Buddhist, it must be said that Cohen's religious imagery is strictly Old Testament -- songs of slaves and sacrifice, serpents and lambs, punctuated by shitloads of amens.
The specter of mortality hangs over the album like a filled noose, the kind of obsession with death you only find in the very young or the very old. About death, Cohen remains, as he's always been about every subject he's ever written about, more aware than afraid. One can't imagine him screaming even if he were on fire. Wouldn't cry if he was chopping onions at his mother's funeral. For better or worse, Leonard Cohen always plays it cool. It's part of his appeal. And ultimately, part of his limitations as an artist.
Anyway, Old Ideas is a waltz of eternal sleep, lullabies leading straight into the tomb. Play it while watching the bank foreclose on your grandma's house. Or play it while you're drinking cheap wine in your apartment with someone you're trying to fuck. If nothing else, LC's good for either situation.
But if this is your first Leonard Cohen album, you're probably better off starting somewhere else.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Još jedan izvrstan album starog velemajstora"
Hrvatski Telekom (Croatia) by Ivan-Vanja Runjic, February 1, 2012
OCJENA: 9 / 10
Album za koji nikad nismo mislili da cemo dozivjeti, konacno je pred nama i apsolutno je vrijedan 'brenda'
Prica je, dakle dobro poznata - staroga Lena je iz penzije istjerala nestašna menadzerica (i nekada davno nakratko i ljubavnica) Kelley Lynch pronevjerivši mu vecinu 'pokretnine' spremljene za stare dane. Uslijedila je velika svjetska turneja, koja je barem dvaput okruzila planet i na kraju potrajala dobre tri godine, a otpocetka se nagadalo i o novom materijalu, prvom u sedam godina, pogotovo nakon što je na koncertima poceo izvoditi neke od novih pjesama. Svi koji su ga gledali na toj turneji, a za to je domaca publika imala zaista dovoljno prilika, od Beca 2008, Beograda 2009. do Zagreba i Ljubljane 2010, mogli su vidjeti da je povratak na pozornicu strahovito revitalizirao tada vec 75-godišnjeg Cohena. Stoga na povratnicki album nikako ne treba gledati kao na obicni cash-in, vec na iznenadnu eksploziju kreativnosti, vjerojatno potaknutu ponovnim susretom s publikom. Muze su mu dakle ocito odlucile pomoci da nadoknadi gore spomenute materijalne gubitke, a i nekako ne bi valjalo da jedan tako nevjerojatan opus, kojem je ovo uzgred receno tek 12. studijski album u 45 godina, završi jednim ipak nešto tanjim albumom (za Cohenove standarde, naravno!) kao što je bio 'Dear Heather' iz 2004.
Vec od najavljenog naslova, koji fanovima nije novost (identican je bio i radni naziv prethodnika), jasno je da Cohena nije napustila (auto)ironija, no 'Stare ideje' stare su na nacin na koji je star i Stari zavjet. Radi se tu, naime, o vjecnima temama koje autora opsjedaju još od pocetaka literarne karijere (koja je koju godinu starija od glazbene) - smrt, duhovnost, introspekcija, veza muškarca i zene, seksualnost, odnos prema višem bicu i slicne divote. Sa svima se Cohen bavi na svoj uobicajeno šarmantan i duhovit, ali i duboko mudar i prozivljen nacin - ako je takav bio i s 30 i nešto kad je pocinjao pjevati, logicno je onda da sa punih 77 stara sova ima odgovore na vecinu pitanja.
Album pocinje rijecima 'I'd love to speak to Leonard, he's a sportsman and a shephard, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit...' ('Going Home') i odmah smo na poznatom terenu tihe, gotovo pastoralne glazbene podloge koja neprekidno raste u bogatu, ali još uvijek diskretno orkestriranu zvucnu sliku upotpunjenu vilinskim pratecim vokalima mladahnih sestara Webb (koje smo takoder imali priliku upoznati na zadnjoj turneji). Cohenov glas dublji je i prigušeniji nego ikad, sve blizi recitaciji nego pjevanju, ali još uvijek itekako sposoban iznijeti melodiju, o emociji da se i ne govori. Slijedi sedmominutna 'Amen', još jedan efektan ispovjedni ep, nakon njega i centralna pjesma albuma, gotovo savršen najavni singl 'Show Me The Place', dirljivo finalno autorovo obracanje Stvoritelju, s divnom melodijom i rijecima koje nepogrešivo pogadaju metu - cisti vintage Cohen. Slijedi 'Darkness', bluz stare škole i još starijeg mraka, zatim über-ironican pokajnicki ljubavni zov 'Anyhow', i njegov moguci nastavak, 'Crazy To Love You'. U 'Come Healing' dominiraju zenski vokali, uz sestre Webb, tu je sad i poznati glas Cohenove vjerne glazbene pratilje posljednjih cetvrt stoljeca, Sharon Robinson. 'Banjo' je glazbeno mozda nešto manje interesantna, ali je lirski itekako intrigantna, dok je 'Lullaby' upravo to što joj kaze naslov, a završna 'Different Sides', pomalo mizantropska ljubavna light koracnica, još je jedan highlight.
Fini diskretni akusticarski instrumentalni minimalizam zamijenio je nekadašnji light-electro zvuk koji ga prati još od sredine '80-ih i antologijskih albuma 'Various Positions' i 'I'm Your Man' i upravo savršeno pristaje uz kontekst price i tematski okvir pjesama. šteta je mozda jedino što nema izvrsne, himnicne 'Born In Chains' koju je dosta izvodio na zadnjoj turneji, no kako nije jedina koja je otpala ('Feels So Good', 'The Street', 'Book Of Longing'...), ostaje velika šansa da ovo nije posljednje što smo culi od Cohena, a to je zaista sjajna vijest. 'Old Ideas' je naprosto još jedan izvrstan album starog velemajstora, a ako Cohen nakon njega (i po mogucnosti još jedne turneje?) ipak ode u tu svoju prisilno odgodenu, ali debelo zasluzenu mirovinu, pa ispadne posljednja ploca u njegovoj karijeri, od svoje se publike oprostio na najbolji moguci nacin...
"Another great album of the old GM"
Hrvatski Telekom (Croatia) by Ivan-Vanja Runjic, February 1, 2012
RATING: 9 / 10
Album for which we never thought that we experience, is finally before us, and it is absolutely worth the 'brand'
The story is thus well known - the old Lena is forced out of retirement mischievous manager (and former lover and long-short) Kelley Lynch pronevjerivši his most 'movable' saved for old age. This was followed by a world tour, which is at least twice surrounded the planet and ultimately lasted a good three years, a beginning has been speculation about the new material, the first in seven years, especially after the concert began to perform some new songs. All who have watched him on this tour, and it is a domestic audience had indeed plenty of opportunities, of Vienna, 2008, Belgrade 2009th to Zagreb and Ljubljana 2010, could see that thereturn to the stage tremendously revitalized by then 75-year-old Cohen. Therefore, the comeback album should not be viewed as a simple cash-in, but the sudden explosion of creativity, is likely to prompt a reunion with the audience. The Muses were therefore he obviously decided to help compensate for the above-mentioned material losses, and somehow no one would be wrong to such an incredible body of work, which by the way this is the 12 studio album in 45 years, completed a somewhat thinner album (to Cohen's standards, of course!) as a 'Dear Heather' from 2004.
Ever since the announced titles that fans is nothing new (same was the working title of its predecessor), it is clear that Cohen has not left the (auto) irony , but the 'old ideas' are old in the manner in which the star and the Old Testament. It is here, namely, the eternal themes that are assailed by the beginnings of the literary career (which is a year older than the music) - death, spirituality, introspection, the relationship of men and women, sexuality, relationship to a higher being, and similar wonders. With all of the Cohen engaged in their usual charming and witty, and wise and deeply-felt way - if this is a 30 something when he began to sing, it is logical then that the full 77 old owl has answers to most questions.
Album begins words 'I'd love to speak to Leonard, he's a sportsman and a Shephard, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit...' ('Going Home') and now we are on familiar ground quiet, almost pastoral musical background that is constantly growing in the rich, but still discreetly orchestrated sound image complete with fairy backing vocals mladahnih Webb sisters (who have also had the opportunity to meet on the last tour). Cohen's voice is deeper and muted than ever, closer to recitation than singing, but still very much able to take out the melody, the emotion that I speak. Below are seven minute 'Amen', another effective confessional ep, followed by the central song album, an almost perfect first single 'Show Me The Place', the author's touching final speech to the Creator, with a beautiful melody and words that unfailingly hit the target - pure vintage Cohen. Followed by 'Darkness', old school blues and even older dark, then über-ironic remorseful love call 'Anyhow,' and its possible sequel, 'Crazy To Love You'. In 'Come Healing' is dominated by female vocals, the Webb sisters, there is now a well-known voice of Cohen's faithful musical companions past quarter century, Sharon Robinson. 'Banjo' is musically perhaps less interesting, but is lyrically very intriguing, while the 'Lullaby' was exactly what its title says, a final 'Different Sides', somewhat misanthropic love light march, is another highlight.
Fini discrete akusticarski instrumental minimalism has been replaced by former light-electro sound that accompanies it since the mid-80s and the anthology album 'Various Positions' and 'I'm Your Man' and it fits perfectly in the context of the narrative and thematic framework songs. The damage is perhaps the only thing not great, himnicne 'Born In Chains' which was performed on the back lot tour, but it was not the only one who fell off ('Feels So Good', 'The Street', 'Book Of Longing'...) remains a good chance that this is not the last we heard from Cohen, and it's really great news. 'Old Ideas' is just another great album of the old GM, and if Cohen after him (and possibly another tour?) however went in that his involuntary deferred, but the large well-deserved retirement, and drop the last plate in his career, from his farewell to the audience the best possible way...
"Album review: Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas"
Stars: 4.5/5
Verdict: As the clock counts down, the poet takes stock of his life
Because Leonard Cohen is 77 and has always weighed words, we should enjoy the ambiguities in this album's title. Songs about ageing, darkness, failed love, apologising to women in his past, angels scratching at the door, Biblical imagery . . . These indeed are ideas he has explored, refined, distilled and reconsidered repeatedly. And, perhaps, they are the thoughts of a man considering mortality with more immediacy than he once did.
Musically there are, if not old ideas, certainly familiar settings (breathy and melodic women's backing vocals) for his husky, sexy speak-sing baritone. And these old ideas are brought to life by old friends, among them Jennifer Warnes, the Webb Sisters, Anjani Thomas and his touring band.
There's also his familiar humour, right from the opener Going Home in which another voice says "I love to speak to Leonard . . . he's a lazy bastard living in a suit" and that droll wit turns the voice into a puppet-master for whoever Cohen might be and "he will speak these words of wisdom like a sage, a man of vision, though he knows he's really nothing but the brief elaboration of a tube".
So, old ideas? An old man's ideas? Certainly, but hardly threadbare because Cohen imbues them with an emotional resonance and convincing delivery. When he "sings" he get very close to more recent Dylan. The gently rocking Darkness has that gravitas: "I got no future, I know my days are few, the present's not that pleasant, just a lot of things to do. I thought the past would last me, but the darkness got that too". And the double negatives ("I don't smoke no cigarettes, don't drink no alcohol") are more properly from the Dylan/Springsteen workin' class man camp.
There are the metaphorical lyrics (Amen, Show Me the Place, Darkness, Come Healing, Banjo) but also songs of broken love and reflection. On Anyhow he speak-sings over lightly jazzy piano and breathy whispering women, "Have mercy on me baby, after all I did confess. I know you have to hate me, [but] could you hate me less?"
And Different Sides ("We find ourselves on different sides of a line that nobody drew") which exists at the interface of metaphor, symbolism and the personal. There are two voices, the first might or might not be a woman talking to Cohen: "I to my side call the meek and the mild, you to your side all the Word . . . you want to live where the suffering is, I want to get out of town, c'mon baby give me kiss, stop writing everything down".
Such lyrical refraction and shifting perspectives (on life and death as much as relationships) are what makes Cohen such a rare voice and lyricist. Old ideas, yes. But also the universals: love, forgiveness, the pain of life and the mystery of death.
Leonard Cohen remains a convincing witness to all these things, a reassuring voice and a firm and warm guiding hand.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen er som alltid en ulykkelig elsker"
Dagbladet (Norway) by Fredrik Wandrup, February 2, 2012
Verken tematisk eller musikalsk byr han på store brudd.
ANMELDELSE: Skjønnhet og ulykke er gamle parhester i kunstens verden. Perfekt utformede tragedier dyrker en form for nederlagets estetikk. Uttrykket kan være forførende og ha en nesten hypnotisk kraft, mens innholdet forteller om død, oppbrudd, hat, selvmordstanker og uforsonlighet.
En roman, et maleri, en opera eller et dikt kan være fullbyrdet inntil det perfekte, mens budskapet klinger som en dødsrallen: Her er intet håp. Alt er over. De som står igjen på scenen, er alt annet enn lykkelige. Men kunstneren rammer deres fortapelse inn i et forsonende skjær av fullbyrdet fortellerkunst.
Den kanadiske dikteren, sangeren og komponisten Leonard Cohen (77) er en spesialist i denne bransjen. Igjen og igjen har forvandlet sin egen sorg, smerte og utilstrekkelighet til smilende balsam for sine lyttere.
Hans album nummer tolv på 45 år, «Old Ideas», bekrefter Cohen som en utrettelig, men mislykket elsker. Hvem skriver beskere sanger om kjærligheten enn ham? Samtidig vikler han sine oppbrudd inn i en form som gynger både ham selv og lytteren over i en mediterende tilstand, en verden der rytmen, den sparsomme instrumentbruken, den maskuline røsten og det englelyse kvinnekoret oppfordrer til å lukke igjen øynene for verdens mangel på perfeksjon og lene seg tilbake i en ensomhet som likner den drømmen om kjærlighet som er gått i knas.
I forkant av «Old Ideas», er de 11 tidligere studioalbumene til Leonard Cohen utgitt i en elegant boks. Her en dag lot jeg meg underkaste hele verket, samtlige plater på rekke og rad, til sammen åtte timer, et kvarter og ti sekunder. Litt av en reise. Fra de første strofene på «Songs of Leonard Cohen» («Suzanne takes you down, to her place by the river...») suger Cohen deg inn i sitt univers, en blanding av myter og realisme.
Allerede her dukker noen av de flotteste sangene til Cohen opp, tre av dem ble brukt av Robert Altman i den poetiske westernfilmen «Mr. McCabe and Mr. Miller» (1971), med Warren Beatty og Julie Christie. I et snøfylt skogslandskap i det ville vesten slåss menneskene med drifter og lidenskap mens Cohen synger «Winter Lady», «Sisters of Mercy» og den enestående «The Stranger Song».
Kanskje behøvde han ikke ha utgitt flere album, og likevel vært en kultfigur. Det er lett å glemme at Leonard Cohen før han spilte inn sin første plate, hadde et sterkt rennomé som lyriker og romanforfatter, ja nærmest som det nye, unge håpet for kanadisk litteratur. Interesserte bør skaffe seg DVD-utgaven av den svart/hvite dokumentarfilmen «Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen» fra 1965, der en ung Cohen leverer den råflotte replikken: «å være poet er ikke noe yrke, det er en dom».
Han framstår som en blanding av standupkomiker og diktoppleser, som en smilende, cool løve i Montreals beatnik-miljø og som ruklete nachspiel-sanger. Hans best kjente roman het symptomatisk nok «Skjønne tapere» (1966).
De 11 platene leder med konsekvens fram mot dagens Cohen. Flere av utgivelsene har demonstrativt beskjedne titler, som «Songs From a Room», «Recent Songs», «Ten New Songs», eller den typiske «Songs of Love and Hate». Med en stemme som en blanding av Lee Hazlewood og Johnny Cash utvikler han sin form for monoton, melankolsk visesang. I 1977 blir han overkjørt av den legendariske wall-of-sound-produsenten Phil Spector. Resultatet er en plate som er mer minneverdig for sin tittel enn for det masete musikalske uttrykket, «Death of a Ladies Man».
Men han famler seg tilbake på sporet, og på 1980-tallet lager han to plater, «Various Positions» (1984) og «I'm Your Man» (1988). Med disse mesterverkene finner han sin form. En mental krise fører til ni års musikkpause mellom 1992 og 2001, mens Cohen ribbet seg selv for sine mest destruktive illusjoner i samarbeid med sin zenbuddhistiske guru Roshi, i et kloster på Mount Baldy i California. Hans viktigste lærdom derfra var vissheten om at det ikke finnes noen gud og at han kunne slutte å strebe etter en høyere mening med livet.
Denne formen for avklarethet og frihet er muligens det som skaper harmonien i Cohens musikk. Det han ikke har klart å kvitte seg med, er åpenbart den formen for streben som er rettet mot kvinnene. «Old Ideas» rommer 10 sanger. På coveret vises ark fra den lille notisboka poeten har skriblet ned tekstene i.
Til fem sanger har han skrevet melodien alene. «Crazy to Love You» er skrevet sammen med hans kjæreste de siste åra, sangeren Anjani Thomas, mens fire låter er lagd i samarbeid med Patrick Leonard, kjent produsent for Roger Waters/Pink Floyd, Elton John og ikke minst Madonna.
Albumet er produsert dels av Patrick Leonard, dels av Anjani Thomas, dels av Dino Soldo og endelig Cohens gamle samarbeidspartner Ed Sanders, legendarisk medlem av gruppa The Fugs. Kvinnekoret, som er en så viktig del av arrangementene på de aller fleste av Cohens plater, besørges av veteraner som Sharon Robinson, Dana Glover, The Webb Sisters og Jennifer Warnes.
Som så ofte før handler sangene om dyder og synder, verdighet og skam, stolthet og lidelse Men det er ingen gud her, selv om det fins religiøs symbolikk. Mest av alt handler det om konsekvensen av at forhold går i knas, alle de nedverdigende situasjonene, rollespillet, opplevelsen av å bli forvandlet til noen man ikke ønsker å være.
Gamle ideer, hva betyr det? Cohen går nok en gang inn i en dødsdans med kjærligheten, denne svikefulle partneren i livets halvtomme ballsal. Han starter med «Going Home», der han ironiserer over sin egen rolle som vismann og visjonær: «He wants to write a love song/An anthem of forgiving/A manual for living with defeat/A cry above the suffering/A sacrifice recovering/But that isn't what I need him to complete.»
I «Amen» er sangeren klar til å møte sin dom, avkledt og edru, etter å ha vært igjennom mareritt og skyld. Det handler om soning og forsoning, bare ett ord gjenstår; «amen», slik må det være. «Show Me the Place» er en kjærlighetssang full av kristen symbolikk, en skildring som kan leses som et forhold der jeg-personen er blitt en slave av partneren. Men kan også handle om en forvirret manns lengsel etter fred.
«Darkness» beskriver et destruktivt forhold som suger de elskende ned i mørke og interesseløshet, vekk fra morgenens lys og regnbuens fargespekter. Men låta kan samtidig handle om døden som nærmer seg, sangeren har ingen framtid, han vet at hans dager er talte. Denne blandingen av konkrete og mytiske motiver er noe av det som kjennetegner Cohens poesi.
«Anyhow» er en kjærlighetssang av det aller råeste slaget, en blues med stikkord som oppbrudd, hat, skyld, nåde, bekjennelse, tilgivelse. Om «Darkness» var innhyllet i dødens mørke, er denne sangen omslynget av livets svarteste områder, og det er enda verre.
«Crazy to Love You» er en skummel låt om kjærlighetens galskap, om falskhet og spill: «Had to go crazy to love you/Had to let everything fall/Had to be people I hated/Had to be no one at all.» Neste sang, «Come Healing», besynger ensomheten: «O solitude of longing/Where love has been confined/Come healing of the body/Come healing of the mind» og seinere: «Come healing of the reason/come healing of the heart.» Eller:«Come healing of the spirit/come healing of the limb.»
Låta «Banjo» er en merkelig blues, utløst ved synet av en istykkerslått banjo som dupper ute på et herjet hav. Hvor kommer den fra? Kanskje er den slitt av ryggen på en som eide den, eller er den hentet «ut av graven til noen».
Over til «Lullaby», en vakker vuggesang, drømmen om søvn og harmoni for slitne sjeler. Siste låt, «Different Sides», er nok en kjærlighetssang, om problemene med å møtes på tvers av «grenser ingen har trukket». Det høres ikke enkelt ut: «You want me to change the way I make love/I want to leave it alone.»
En innsikt full av fortvilelse, framført som om den blør fra et hjerte av silke.
"Leonard Cohen is always an unhappy love either thematic or musical offering him the big break."
Dagbladet (Norway) by Fredrik Wandrup, February 2, 2012
Neither thematically or musically, he offers the big break.
REVIEW: Beauty and the accident is old fighters in the world of art. Perfectly styled tragedies serve a form of defeat aesthetics. The expression can be seductive and have an almost hypnotic effect, while the content says about death, disintegration, hatred, suicidal thoughts and intransigence.
A novel or a painting or an opera or a poem can be consummated until the perfect, but the message sounds like a dødsrallen: There is no hope. Everything is over. Those who remain on stage is anything but happy. But the artist affects their destruction in a conciliatory gleam of accomplished storytelling.
The Canadian poet, singer and composer Leonard Cohen (77) is a specialist in this industry. Again and again has turned his own grief, pain and inadequacy of smiling balm for his listeners.
His album number eleven in 45 years, "Old Ideas," confirms Cohen as a tireless, but unsuccessful lover. Who writes beskere songs about love than him? At the same time wrap he's breaking up into a shape that swings both himself and the listener into a meditative state, a world where the rhythm, the sparse instrumental use, the male voice and it englelyse female choir calling for closing the eyes of the world's lack of perfection and Leaning back in a solitude that is similar to the dream of love that has gone to bits.
Prior to the "Old Ideas" is the 11 previous studio albums to the Leonard Cohen published in an elegant box. Here one day I let me submit the entire work, all the plates in a row, a total of eight hours, fifteen minutes and ten seconds. What a journey. From the first bars of "Songs of Leonard Cohen" ("Suzanne takes you down, two in place by the river ...») Cohen sucks you into its universe, a mixture of myth and realism.
Already here comes some of the finest songs of Cohen up, three of them were used by Robert Altman in the poetic western movie, "Mr. McCabe and Mr. Miller "(1971), with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. In a snowy woodland in the Wild West fighting men with instincts and passion while Cohen sings "Winter Lady," "Sisters of Mercy" and the outstanding "The Stranger Song."
Maybe he did not have released several albums, and still been a cult figure. It is easy to forget that Leonard Cohen before he recorded his first album, had a strong reputation as a poet and novelist, yes almost like the new, young hope for Canadian literature. Interested parties should obtain the DVD version of the black / white documentary film, "Ladies and Gentlemen ...Mr. Leonard Cohen "from 1965, where a young Cohen delivers the extravagant remark:" To be a poet is not a vocation, it is a verdict."
He appears to be a mixture of stand-up comedian and diktoppleser, as a smiling, cool lion in Montreal's beatnik environment and ruklete after party songs. His best known novel called symptomatic NOK "Beautiful Losers" (1966).
The 11 plates leads to consequence up to today's Cohen. Several publications have ostentatiously modest titles, like "Songs From a Room," "Recent Songs", "Ten New Songs," or the typical "Songs of Love and Hate." With a voice like a mix of Lee Hazlewood and Johnny Cash, he develops his kind of monotonous, melancholy folk songs. In 1977, he is run over by the legendary wall-of-sound producer Phil Spector. The result is an album that is more memorable for its title than for the fussy musical phrase, "Death of a Ladies Man".
But he fumbled back on track and in the 1980s, he made two albums, "Various Positions" (1984) and "I'm Your Man" (1988). With these masterpieces, he finds his form. A mental crisis leads to nine-year musical break between 1992 and 2001, while Cohen stripped themselves of their most destructive illusions in cooperation with its zenbuddhistiske guru, Roshi, in a monastery on Mount Baldy in California. His most important lesson there was the certainty that there is no god and that he could cease to strive for a higher purpose in life.
This form of serenity and freedom is possibly what creates harmony in Cohen's music. What he has not managed to get rid of, is obviously the kind of struggle that is directed against women. "Old Ideas" contains 10 songs. On the cover sheet is from the small notebook poet has scribbled down the lyrics in.
The five songs he has written the melody alone. "Crazy to Love You" written together with his girlfriend over the last few years, singer Anjani Thomas, while four tracks are made in collaboration with Patrick Leonard, renowned producer of Roger Waters / Pink Floyd, Elton John and of course Madonna.
The album is produced partly by Patrick Leonard, partly by Anjani Thomas, partly by Dino Soldo and finally Cohen's old collaborator Ed Sanders, legendary member of the group The FUG. Male Choir, which is such an important part of the arrangements on most of Cohen's records, is provided by veterans like Sharon Robinson, Dana Glover, The Webb Sisters and Jennifer Warnes.
As so often is songs about the virtues and sins, dignity and shame, pride and suffering, but there is no God here, though there is religious symbolism. Most of all it's about the consequences of that relationship is shattered, all the degrading situations, role play, the experience of being transformed into someone you do not want to be.
Old ideas, what does it mean? Cohen is NOK once in a death dance with love, this treacherous partner in life's half-empty ballroom. He starts with "Going Home", where he ironic about their own role as a sage and visionary, "He wants to write a love song / An anthem of forgiving / A manual for living with defeat / A cry above the suffering / A sacrifice recovering / But That Is not What I need two complete heaven."
In "Amen" is the singer ready to face his sentence, stripped and sober, having been through nightmares and guilt. It's about atonement and reconciliation, only one word remains, "Amen," so it must be. "Show Me the Place" is a love song full of Christian symbolism, a description that can be read as a relationship where I-person has become a slave to your partner. But can also be about a confused man's yearning for peace.
"Darkness" describes a destructive relationship that draws the lovers into the darkness and indifference, away from the morning light and the rainbow color spectrum. But the song can also be about death approaching, the singer has no future, he knows that his days are numbered. This mixture of concrete and mythical scenes are some of the characteristics of Cohen's poetry.
"Anyhow" is a love song of the very toughest battle, a blues with words that break, hate, guilt, grace, confession, forgiveness. The "Darkness" was shrouded in death's dark, this song embrace of life's darkest areas, and it is even worse.
"Crazy to Love You" is a creepy song about love, madness, of falsehood and games, "Had to go crazy to love you / Had two let everything drop / Had to Be people I hated / Had to Be no one at all." Next song, "Come Healing" besynger loneliness: "O solitude of longing / Where Love Has Been confined / Come healing of the body / Come healing of the mind" and later: "Come healing of the reason / Come healing of the heart . "Or," Come healing of the spirit / Come healing of the limb."
The song "Banjo" is a strange blues, triggered by the sight of a broken off banjo, floating out of a shattered sea. Where does it come from? Perhaps it is worn off the back of a person who owned it, or is it taken "out of the grave of someone."
Over to "Lullaby", a beautiful lullaby, dream sleep and harmony for tired souls. The last track, "Different Sides" is NOK a love song, about the difficulty of meeting across the "borders no one has drawn." It does not sound simple: "You Want Me to change the way I make love / I want to leave it alone."
An insight full of despair, performed as if the bleeding from a heart of silk.
"Review: Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas' reads better than it sounds"
HitFix by Katie Hasty, February 1, 2012
Critic's Rating: B-
SONGWRITER'S FIRST ALBUM IN EIGHT YEARS IS ALMOST TOO PERFECT
For fans of Leonard Cohen's songwriting, there are plenty of reasons to love "Old Ideas." But for those eager for a great-sounding Leonard Cohen album, prepare for some disappointment.
At 77, the Canadian songsmith remains one of the most gifted lyricists and folk poets in pop music history. It's taken eight years for this new studio release, its sites set on eternal bedfellows sex and death, and it appears the bard is feeling his age advance.
"I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard / Living in a suit," he jokes in the first lines of album opener "Going Home," an apparent start to that home-bound journey. He published all the lines to the song in the pages of The New Yorker -- not Rolling Stone or the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame website -- like managing his own expectations.
Then later on "Crazy to Love You," the old joker explains the result of this inward-looking: "Sometimes I'd head for the highway / I'm old and the mirrors don't lie... I'm tired of choosing desire / I been saved by a blessed fatigue." Each lethargic, deep-burrowed baritone note is sung with Cohen's signature deadpanning weariness, with barely any regard to the purity of the key and more to the elegiac gravity of his words. It's on this song its instrumental equivalent answers back: he allows in his out-of-tune guitar buzz all over the frets.
But for the rest of the album, it's a disappointing display of musicianship over and over, not because his backers aren't able performers or very good at their instruments. In fact, Cohen's choirs of angels -- another theme repeated throughout Cohen's album history -- are positively perfect singers. That's the problem. It's like pouring sugar into bitter tea, over and over, making an easy-listening crutch for all the songwriter's hunched posturing.
Like I said in my initial review of "Darkness," those wide-eyed vocalists should have maybe been replaced by a raging National guitar or a crew of saxes for the call-and-response. The harmonica of campy "Lullaby" could have been a church organ. Half of heart-stopping "Amen" sounds like it was made on a Casio keyboard.
That's another thing. For all the full-frontal brutality that is Cohen's voice, his musings on the after-life in horn-like whispers, almost every mix actively avoids a live mix and happy accidents, with a lot of electronic instruments calibrated to clean-up this "naked and filthy" series.
Pay extra attention to sign-off "Different Sides" and the first four tracks in this front-loaded album. Maybe even remix them -- that's what Cohen and co-producers Patrick Leonard and Ed Sanders should have done.
"Leonard Cohen's latest, 'Old Ideas,' takes the singer back to one good idea: Melody"
One of the best lines about songwriting comes from a 1992 interview of Leonard Cohen by Paul Zollo: "If I knew where the good songs came from I'd go there more often." (He must have liked it too: the line appears twice in the same interview.)
It is both a Zen acceptance of the "mysterious condition" of songwriting, as Cohen calls it, and a wry refutation of the notion that the best songs emanate from some ineffable, higher power. These kinds of comments tend to sound like false modesty from most songwriters ("Thank the cosmos for that song you like! I am but a humble vessel"), but I think Cohen's saying something else: While the process contains mystery, writing good songs is above all grueling work, and waiting around for divine lightning is pointless.
Now we have a new batch of songs on Old Ideas, out this week. Whatever their provenance, mystical or mundane, what constitutes a good song for Leonard Cohen, at age 77, with his history? There's no explicit sense in the songs themselves of why this is a collection of "old ideas" (though the phrase itself is an old idea: it was the working title for the album before it), other than containing "ideas" from someone who is "old." But while very much in line with the Leonard Cohen Sound we've come to expect in the 21st century, these songs contain some interesting echoes of a far more musical Cohen, one we haven't heard in a while.
Cohen admirers, whether because of his innate and tremendous gifts or because of his famous roots as a published poet and novelist, tend to focus hard on the lyrics. And there's no question his best songs succeed triumphantly in that department. But running down his career, one wonders at what point--and why--Cohen abandoned the other half of his craft: Melody. The arc is intriguing: He leaves behind pure literature; plunges headlong into song, lit credentials and talent in tow but with a palpable fervor for music itself; then seems to return to poetry, to spoken word, with the musical component as a necessary concession to the marketplace.
And the title of this album seems to warrant a close look at Cohen's career arc. With the focus on the text, it gets forgotten that he was once a master melodicist. His first album contains a number of songs--obvious contenders like "Suzanne," "Sisters of Mercy," and "So Long Marianne," but also "Stranger Song" and "Winter Lady"--that would hold up fairly well even with lousy or pedestrian lyrics. Then there's a song like "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," which has some nice lines but would be nowhere without that tune. For a seeming dilettante in 1967 (when he had already achieved enough fame as a poet to warrant a documentary film), these were impressive showings.
Cohen's gift for melodic invention remained strong throughout the '70s, particularly on albums like New Skin For the Old Ceremony and Recent Songs, from 1974 and 1979 respectively. But as the '80s began, a change came over Cohen's voice, what he himself has called "the deepening." That's one way of putting it: While it's true his register lowered, the change also resulted in an abrupt and dramatic narrowing of his vocal range. Perhaps coincidentally, this timbral shift parallelled an increased reliance on synthetic keyboards over acoustic guitar for composition and accompaniment. Mostly gone was his distinctive fingerpicking on the classical guitar, to make way for an invasion of canned beats and fake strings.
These changes draw a fairly stark line between the two eras of his career, pre- and post-deepening. In the latter half, Cohen has given greater (by his admission, laborious) attention to the lyrics, at some cost to the musical end of things. Singer-songwriters need to be able to sing what they write, after all, and the keyboard loops engendered repetitive song structures upon which to pile verse after verse (after verse; Cohen's song structures in this period tend toward AAAAAAABAAAAAAAAB, etc.). There are a great many good songs on Various Positions, I'm Your Man, and The Future, and an abundance of brilliant lyrics, but little of the more delicate beauty found in his first decade of recordings. The arrangements on these albums lack in subtlety and depth--a superficiality nearly charming on the electro-poppy I'm Your Man but oppressive on The Future, Cohen's sole '90s release.
It comes as some relief, then, that on the last three Leonard Cohen albums (Ten New Songs, Dear Heather, and now, Old Ideas) he and his collaborators have settled on a mellower musical direction. Since Ten New Songs in 2001, the Cohen Sound has been a kind of synthy lounge pop, smooth and smoky concoctions bubbling under the muttering master's voice. Of these three, Old Ideas works best, which suggests it has been a decade-long process of perfecting "Late-Period Leonard." There are fewer moments of gauche synth or terrible sax on Ideas, and a more mature set of sonic textures. Finally, of all his albums since the "deepening," here we have the finest application of Cohen's voice in its cask-aged condition. With a range reduced to nearly nothing (and we should all be happy to sound this good doing anything at 77 years old), he has learned ways to suggest melody that bring a musicality to Old Ideas that has been lacking in his work for too long.
The first line of the album offers up a classic Cohen tic: "I love to speak with Leonard." Leonard Cohen loves mentioning Leonard Cohen in his songs, and while the first time it appeared in "Famous Blue Raincoat" ("Sincerely, L. Cohen.") it might have seemed like a precious bit of '70s confessionalism, since at least "Field Commander Cohen" (from New Skin) Cohen's appearances in Cohen's songs have been winking and wry. This opening song is called "Going Home," and is one of four songs where the music is written (entirely, unless Cohen is being overly modest in the liner notes) by Robert Leonard. On all four, Leonard (Robert, that is) hews close to the late-period model, providing slow-burners with simple, traditional chord sequences. On these songs in particular, the melodies are spartan to the point of near-speech, with the backing singers and other instruments providing what melodic interest there is. Still, Leonard (not Cohen) gives "Show Me The Place" a low-key gospel treatment that provides some of the nicer instrumental passages on the album.
More interesting is another co-write, "Crazy To Love You," with music by Anjani Thomas, who also contributed to Dear Heather. The song features a rare return to the fingerpicking style of Cohen's '60s and '70s output. Even the chords and production (no synth or sax or canned beats, just voice and guitar) echo that period, while the singing finds Cohen reaching more than usual, to lovely effect.
Writing music on his own, Cohen's success rate varies. "Darkness" begins promisingly, with that fast, Spanish-style fingerpicking redolent of past glories like "Avalanche" and "Stranger Song," but then the band kicks in and it turns into a bland blues. "Banjo," another blues, seems like a ridiculous waste of time until a strikingly nice horn section enters briefly mid-song.
In the credit column of solo Cohen compositions, "Amen" has the darkened, bleak feel of much of his '80s and '90s work, but with far better taste brought to the arrangement. The string section is lovely and doomy, the cornet is moody and subtle, and the drums are real, honest-to-god drums.
The album ends strong with another Cohen-only affair, "Different Sides." This one pulls together a lot of what's best about the man's music, from all eras. The melody is jaunty and dark, the words sly and slightly silly (in a good way). It also has the album's funniest line: "Come on, baby, give me a kiss/ Stop writing everything down." Meanwhile, Dana Glover's vocal assistance on the choruses are harshly weird, which points toward a new approach to satisfying Cohen's eternal need for women backup singers.
For a good many years and albums it saddened many that either Cohen's musical taste--or his interest in music--had abandoned him, or that he'd handed over the reins to lesser talents permanently. There was never any doubt he would only deepen and progress as a lyricist, but after a point it became harder and harder to engage with his music as music. Old Ideas, while still the work of an artist who, in the end, favors text over sound, has energized my engagement. There are good songs here, and wherever they're from, one hopes he'll go there again, and often.
"New album releases | Leonard Cohen shares a lifetime of lessons"
On his first album in eight years, Leonard Cohen, 77, writes from the perspective of a poet preaching and confessing a lifetime of lessons on life, love and death.
His voice on "Old Ideas" is a resonant subterranean growl that dissipates into a craggy whisper at times. He gets plenty of vocal assistance from a team of female voices: Dana Glover, Jennifer Warnes, Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley). The music is arranged and rendered tastefully and austerely, primarily with just piano or organ, guitars, light percussion, the occasional violin or horn.
There are songs about mortality, about love and romances in decline. From "The Darkness": "I've got no future / I know my days are few / I thought the past would last me / But the darkness got that too."
From "Anyhow": "I've used up all my chances / And you'll never take me back / But there's never harm in asking / Could you cut me one more slack?"
From "Show Me the Place": "Show me the place; help me roll away the stone / Show me the place; I can't move this thing alone / Show me the place where you want your slave to go / Show me the place; I've forgotten I don't know."
"Old Ideas" is a mix of confessions and observations. It's part elegy, part valedictory, part burlesque and monologue, all of which prove that what's old isn't necessarily useless or obsolete.
"Album review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (SONY)"
Gigseen TV by Kate, February 1, 2012
This is the fist release from Leonard Cohen since 2004's Dear Heather, and in true Cohen style, it's songs are emblazoned with poetic cries of love, loss, yearning, struggle, spirituality and lust.
Cohen was an acclaimed and accomplished writer before getting into music, and as ever, his well defined and distinguishable presence is unmistakable on Old Ideas. The first thing to hit you when you listen to this record is Cohen's voice; a deep, gravelly voice rife with sophistication and wisdom that can only come from a man of his age.
The sing-speak style of Cohen's delivery is utterly penetrating. It takes a hold of the listener, delicately compelling and with lyrics of intense resonance. Tracks like Show Me The Place find Cohen adopting the Protestant hymnal in the same stance as his most famous song, Hallelujah, and his stirring lyrics are accompanied beautifully by simple, melodic piano chords and sensibilities.
His classic 'hopeless blues' format interspersed with somber, downbeat and doleful but clever subject matter is, as we know, what Cohen is best at. His poetic ability flows with ease and emerges in his lyrics as bittersweet wit that you can't help but warm to. Lines such as: "Have mercy on me baby/After all I did confess/Even though you have to hate me/Could you hate me less?", from the track, Anyhow, are prime examples of the vulnerability, elegance and sometimes cheeky humour that materialises in his songwriting.
"Cohen's latest may be fitting career capper"
4.5 of 5 stars
Leonard Cohen is casting old ideas in a new light.
On "Old Ideas," Cohen's first album since 2004, the 77-year-old sings about mortality, spirituality, love and desire. These are indeed old ideas, since none of these topics are new to Cohen's repertoire. The singer-song writer and poet has been writing and recording about similar topics since the 1950s.
But Cohen's 12th studio album "Old Ideas" is written from a wealth of experience that's still searching for answers.
"Old Ideas" is stunning in its stark power. Cohen whispers more than he sings, as if he were reciting a confession or a secret.
The album opens with "Going Home," which is written in third person about a Leonard -- presumably Cohen. In a way, this places Cohen on the outside as an observer and a vessel for the album.
Many of the songs float around repeated lines, as if Cohen is mulling their meaning.
On "Amen," Cohen repeats the words "tell me again: Tell me again / when the angels are panting / and scratching the door to come in." The track shuffles along like a creeping tango with mortality on a worn out dance floor.
Cohen's voice may lack the power of his early years, but the frailty works to his advantage in adding an authoritative tone.
The music matches Cohen's slow, steady words. The tempos of the tracks range from slow to crawling. Cohen takes his time, crawling across each track and mulling over each word.
Cohen is backed by sparse acoustic instrumentation, and not a single extra note is played.
"Come Healing" plays like a wry hymn with organs, strings and backing female vocals like church choirs.
Songs like "Show me the place" could be sung to lovers or the heavens: "Show me the place / Help me roll away the stone / Show me the place / I can't move this thing alone." Despite an abundance of spiritual references, Cohen never preaches. He's content to muse and probe.
Cohen has hinted in interviews that this could be his last album, and mortality is key subject throughout the album, but the songs don't dwell on morbid self-pity.
There's plenty of life left, as Cohen shows on "Different Sides," a song loosely about two lovers: "You want to change the way I make love / I want to leave it alone."
Cohen's achievements on "Old Ideas" will be easy to overlook for some. The album rarely builds on catchy melodies. But Cohen enchants in accessible, honest lyrics. Cohen's words are the focus of the album, and they're presented with just the right mixture of harmony and tone.
When it comes to poetic song writing, it'd be hard to find a better album. "Old Ideas" stands as an equal bookend to Cohen's career opposite "The Songs of Leonard Cohen."
The plays like a journey through the wilderness finally nearing it's destination after years of wandering.
The old sage may not have any more answers than when he started, but he's still asking questions to the end, looking for the truth and the holiness.
"Album Review: Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas'"
Billboard by Jim Allen, February 1, 2012
"Old Ideas" is Leonard Cohen's first album of new material since declaring bankruptcy in 2005 due to his ex-manager's alleged embezzlement, which led to his most active touring itinerary in ages to get back in the black. The septuagenarian songsmith's return to the world stage made him an even more widely beloved figure than before. This set seems to reciprocate that warmth by eschewing the arch experimentation of its predecessor -- 2004's "Dear Heather" -- for a more accessible approach. The sparse production recalls Cohen's 1988 release, "I'm Your Man," by throwing the Canadian balladeer's ever-deepening voice and his mix of poetic flair and pitch-black humor into satisfyingly stark relief. New tracks "Going Home" and "Show Me the Place" are respectively more caustic and chastened takes on the man-addresses-maker theme of Cohen's classic "Hallelujah," while the low-key blues and jazz shadings of "The Darkness" and "Anyhow" frame more carnal connections, underscoring the notorious ladies man's continued powers of persuasion even as he inches ever closer toward 80.
"Album review: Leonard Cohen faces mortality and God head-on with 'Old Ideas'"
Examiner by Cole Waterman, February 2, 2012
Reckoning with mortality and God's place in it are far from strange subject matters for Leonard Cohen. But the 77-year-old bard has never grappled with such issues as directly, and with such grace and acceptance, as on Old Ideas, his first studio album in eight years.
Reinvigorated by a nearly three-year long world tour, Cohen seems to have attained some of the inner peace sought after across his previous 11 records. Throughout Old Ideas' 10 songs, there is a theme of resolution, of letting go of burdens needlessly clung to for so long and facing the inevitable with dignity. "Going home/without my sorrow/Going home/sometime tomorrow," Cohen sing-speaks on the opening "Going Home," a trace of nostalgia and optimism in his leathery, time-worn voice. A hymnal flavor in "Show Me The Place" lends credibility to Cohen's plead for heavenly direction, as though he's willing to accept whatever instruction he's offered. "Help me roll away the stone/Show me the place/I can't move this thing alone," he recites as though in prayer. This from a man critics used to say should package razor blades with his albums. Though this isn't Cohen's first album since his foray into Buddhism, no previous record has bore its influence so overtly.
Not that this comforting sentiment means Cohen has lost any of his edge or penchant for sardonic self-reference. Touches of menace flare up at times, most notably in "Darkness." As a sinister rhythm lurches back-and-forth, Cohen addresses a feminine Death figure as a temptation before him -- "I got no future/I know my days are few/The present's not that pleasant/Just a lot of things to do." On "Amen," Cohen sounds as though he's shaking cobwebs and dust from this throat to recite his own elegy from inside a crypt. Closer "Different Sides" dallies between bitterness and disavowal of a failed relationship--"You want to live where the suffering is/I want to get out of town," Cohen says above a bed of ominous organ tones.
As has been the case since Cohen's 1967 debut, the music serves as adornment for his poetry. In a sense, Cohen has come full circle, returning to the sparse instrumentation of his earliest albums. Brushed drum patters, violin strains and subdued saxophone notes flit about, alternately in the background or coming to the fore in relief of Cohen's voice. Even so, Cohen continues dabbling with new textures, most notably the blues, and even country in the rural sweep of "Banjo."
One mainstay of Cohen's sound still firmly in place is the abundance of ghostly female vocals, juxtaposed against Cohen's own sepulchral rumble. The women's singing serves as a current guiding Cohen's voice downriver as though it were a raft adrift, hearkening like the cooing of angels on the aptly titled "Come Healing."
Despite the theme of conclusion, Cohen himself has said he has several songs waiting in the wings for another album. However, if Old Ideas does wind up as the period on Cohen's decades-spanning career, one can hardly imagine a more fitting final statement.
"Leonard Cohen (Columbia) - Old Ideas"
Back in 1988, Leonard Cohen, whilst promoting his album I'm Your Man, said he'd just read in a newspaper that as you get older, "the brain cells connected with anxiety begin to die, and you start feeling a lot better". 24 years later, Cohen repeated the same neurological titbit in an interview with the Observer, crediting his overall better mood to this process of ageing.
But Cohen, not unfairly caricatured as rock's Don of Despair, is a man for whom sounding downbeat has long been a way of life. Resolutely philosophical, Cohen has specialised in ruminations on the relative merits of death and birth, religion and spirituality, hatred and horniness since he first put pen to paper back in 1956.
It would be something of a shock then if 'Laughing Lenny', the ironic nickname given to Cohen by journalists in reference to his less than chirpy demeanour, suddenly made an appearance on Old Ideas.
Thankfully, any fears that Cohen has lightened up as he has matured are quashed by the self-referential lyrics in the powerful opener 'Going Home'. "I'd love to speak with Leonard", Cohen tells us, "he's a sportsman and a shepherd, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit... He will speak these words of wisdom like a sage, a man of vision, though he knows he's really nothing but the brief elaboration of a tune".
Old Ideas is defined by Cohen's growing sense of his own mortality, and listening to the characteristically confessional and intensely stirring songs together is hugely engrossing. The grizzled 77 year old, one of the few songwriters journalists can call a poet without it sounding conceited, is as brilliantly lugubrious and self-deprecating as ever throughout.
'Darkness' is a particular highlight, during which he growls, "I've got no future, I know my days are few". Few expected Cohen to write another classic to join the likes of 'Suzanne' or 'Chelsea Hotel #2' after so long out of the game- but this timeless song rises very near to the top of his canon.
Cohen's unfeasibly deep voice charges every song with an indomitable sense of importance. He makes today's most eminent baritone vocalists, such as Nick Cave or Matt Berninger from The National, sound fit only to serve as backing singers for Alvin & The Chipmunks. When Cohen sings, "I'm naked and I'm filthy, there is sweat upon my brow" on 'Anyhow', the seismic rumblings are of such a force that they risk dangerously interfering with any Richter scale that may be nearby.
But as the overtly hymnal 'Come Healing', and laborious 'Lullaby' testify, not every song on the album is vintage Cohen. However, occasional overbearing female vocals aside, each song's modest production ensures nothing sounds pompous or dated, which is where some of Cohen's latter day synth-infused albums have come a cropper. Instead, a classy, jazz-inflected style defines the understated instrumentation, purpose built for Cohen's sonorous waltzes.
'Crazy To Love You', simply an acoustic guitar straddled by Cohen's bottomless voice, is very much early-era Len, and will no doubt transport many diehards back to the bedsit in which they first heard the so called 'Master of Erotic Despair'. Then, closing the album, 'Different Sides' is typical Cohen, playing his own relationship counsellor in a confrontation with a sultry female vocal.
Over the course of the album it becomes clear that Cohen is much too wise to even attempt reinventing himself for any new generation(s). He simply doesn't need to, and so Old Ideas sees him playing entirely to his strengths.
"Leonard Cohen - 'Old Ideas'"
Leonard Cohen is an unmatched force in the world of music and poetry alike. He has always had something to tell us, and has found eloquent and haunting ways to do so. On Old Ideas, it is clear that he not done telling us the secrets of the dark just yet. He has come to an understanding with the world, and now the world must come to an understanding with him- and Cohen has the reputation to demand such a thing of the world without seeming arrogant or entitled.
On Old Ideas, Cohen is still poetic, just not dreamily so, as in his early career. The darkness he sang about and wanted to understand is now behind him, because he has been to visit the darkness and wants to move on. On "Crazy To Love You," he realizes that craziness in love is no longer appealing, perhaps a goodbye to the "half crazy" Suzanne of his past, for which he used to pine. The entire album could be seen as the flip side to Songs of Leonard Cohen, as he delivers more of his trademark quotable lines that stand on their own, yet serve to make all the others stronger when woven together.
Old Ideas is a perfect pairing for Songs of Leonard Cohen, although delivered over forty years apart. What Cohen was questioning and exploring on Songs, he has now found the answers to what his younger self could only imagine. The romanticizing of the unknown is no longer present, because Cohen is clearly road-wary and seems ready for a good rest from it all. He still possesses his gravel-infused silk voice that remains one of the sexiest around, making aging seem like something desirable and addictive. Old Ideas seems to be Cohen's swan song, as it ties up his career thus far elegantly and succinctly. He has been there and back, he knows what is there, he know where is there, and he is giving us the answers if we listen closely enough to the message of our musical prophet.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas"
Ponto Alternativo (Portugal) by Emanuel Pereira, February 2, 2012
Naquele que poderá ser o registo de despedida de uma voz ímpar e notável, Leonard Cohen conta-nos, ao ouvido, as suas poéticas e antigas ideias, num álbum tocante.
Temos, porém, de restringir-nos a Voronoff, que contribui mais para a castidade dos macacos do que para a imortalidade dos homens. Todas as jactâncias sobre o progresso científico são charlatanismos deslavados: enquanto a Ciência não suprimir a morte, nada terá feito.
Giovanni Papini, satírico incurável, escrevinhou algumas das mais mordazes passagens sobre o fim. Sobre a depressão maior do Homem (a única?): a consciência do seu próprio término. E, quando ouvimos Leonard Cohen a vociferar-nos ao ouvido 'show me the place where you want your slave to go', sentimos que o tempo, ele, é o único e verdadeiro juiz cego. Tirano, que nos escraviza desde o primeiro dia.
Cohen, aos 77 anos, poderá ter feito aqui a sua despedida no que aos longa-duração diz respeito. Old Ideas, por conseguinte, não é, de todo, um título escolhido ao acaso. é que, neste álbum, encontramos o canadiano no registo que o tornou um dos mais singulares vultos do séc. XX: graciosamente cáustico, passeando a sua soturna voz por entre os mordentes sorrisos da ironia, a irremediável ingenuidade do amor e a melancolia de uma memória que se conta a si mesma há sete décadas. Memórias que rebuscam velhas ideias de um velho que sabe que o é: "mirrors don't lie", confessa Leonard em Crazy To Love You.
Palavras sussurradas num disco que se desdobra em múltiplas melopeias. Ora feitas de uma taciturnidade que arrepia (tão bem ilustrada na bela Going Home), ora erguidas sobre um folk rendilhado a gospel, onde as vozes femininas são uma constante, sendo Darkness disto melhor exemplo. Poucos serão aqueles que irão considerar Old Ideas o melhor álbum de Cohen. Mas também poucos negarão que este é um incontornável testemunho de um poeta que receia ser Sísifo.
I used to love the rainbow
And I used to love the view
Another early morning
I pretend that it was new
But I caught the darkness, baby
And I got it worse than you.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas"
Ponto Alternativo (Portugal) by Emanuel Pereira, February 2, 2012
In what may be the record of a farewell speech unique and remarkable, Leonard Cohen tells us, the ear, its poetic and old ideas, an album touching.
But we have to restrict ourselves to Voronoff, which contributes more to the chastity of monkeys than men to immortality. All bragging on scientific progress are charlatanismos deslavados: while science does not abolish the death, nothing will be done.
Giovanni Papini, satirical incurable, scribbled some of the most poignant passages about the end. About major depression of Man (the only?): Awareness of their own end. And when we hear Leonard Cohen to bluster we heard the 'show me the place where you want your slave to go', we feel that time, he is the only true judge blind. Tyrant who enslaves us from day one.
Cohen, age 77, you may have done here in his farewell to long-term concerns. Old Ideas, therefore, is not at all a title chosen at random. You see, this album, we find the Canadian record in making it one of the most singular figures of the century. XX: gracefully caustic, walking his gloomy voice from between the jaws smiles of irony, the hopeless naivety of love and melancholy of a memory that account to herself for seven decades. Memories rebuscam old ideas of an old man who knows it: "Mirrors do not lie," admits Leonard in Crazy To Love You.
Whispered words in a disk that unfolds in multiple melopeias. It made ??a taciturnity that shiver (as illustrated in the beautiful Going Home), sometimes raised on a lacy folk to gospel, where female voices are a constant, and Darkness best example of this. Few are those who will consider Old Ideas the best album of Cohen. But few will deny that this is a compelling testimony of a poet who fears to be Sisyphus.
I used to love the rainbow
And I used to love the view
Another early morning
I pretend that it was new
But I caught the darkness, baby
And I got it worse than you.
"CD Review: Old Ideas (Leonard Cohen)"
4 stars
With his exhausting three-year-long world tour (including two trips to Perth) behind him, the issuing of 2009's tour document Songs From The Road and a recently released sprawling 18-disc box set compiling his studio and live albums, Leonard Cohen's much-lauded canon of classic songs, stretching all the way back to 1967, has never been under greater scrutiny.
But with all this attention being given to his back catalogue, anticipation is running high for this new album. Released today, Old Ideas is the 77-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter's first collection of new material in eight years. He not only announced his intentions of returning to the studio during 2011 but also unveiled two of these new songs, the bluesy organ-streaked The Darkness and the mournful harmonica- accompanied Lullaby at his recent concerts.
Not unexpectedly, the 10 new compositions deal with subjects that have become his stock in trade - the deep, dark quandaries of human existence, issues of love, relationships, sexuality, loss and death. As with his most popular song Hallelujah, most of the new lyrics are strongly spiritual with references to "going to the river" and "rolling away the stone".
Renowned for crafting his words, he explains on his website his working on the new material: "As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. And the instructions were these... never to lament casually."
Consequently, on a number of tracks he captures a resounding sense of defeat and disappointment. The mellow opening number Going Home sees him standing back and analysing himself as a writer and performer: "I love to speak with Leonard/He's a sportsman and a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard living in a suit." A choir joins in as he sings about going home without his burden and the costume that he wears. On the following track Amen, which features a fine trumpet solo, he seeks constant reassurances from a lover who he's still wanted when he's clean and sober after years of living with self-doubt and seeing all the horror.
It is produced by Patrick Leonard (who has worked with Madonna), and with his touring saxophone player Dino Soldo and his partner Anjani Thomas, the old master's rich baritone voice sounds as bruised and worldly as the subject matter of most of the songs. On Anyhow, another almost spoken lament about forgiveness, he's accompanied by a simple piano and the backing voices of his touring singers Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters. The singers are also at the forefront of Come Healing, a hymn-like number that would be at home on a gospel revival album.
"NEW CD: Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
A new album of poetic and pared-down musical genius
DURING his 44-year career, Leonard Cohen has worn his heart on his sleeve.
Suzanne and Marianne broke it, Alexandra left with it and it was holed up in the Tower of Song.
Now, in Going Home, the first song on his latest album, Old Ideas, he speaks to himself, writing in the third person about his struggles.
"I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard / Living in a suit."
Cohen acknowledges an unforeseen force pulling the strings of his life and ultimately, though not depressingly, he seems, in this elegiac act of surrender, to face the fact that he is "Going home / Without my burden / Going home/ Behind the curtain".
A similar theme is dealt with in Show Me the Place, a gentle piano-led song buoyed up by the lush chorus (of women's voices) that colours each refrain: "Show me the place / For my head is bending low / Show me the place / Where you want your slave to go."
The subject matter may seem to be a little morbid, but Old Ideas is anything but.
Cohen is having fun with his fans, taking the mickey out of his impending mortality.
He knows how much we love him. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it.
His reverberating baritone gets inside your bones, behind your eyes and into your soul as he's singing to his muse: "I know you have to hate me / but could you hate me less?"
Old Ideas is an album of poetic and pared-down musical genius.
And the world is a better place because Cohen, at 77, is still able to offer such brilliance.
"Review: Leonard Cohen - 'Old Ideas'"
Live4ever by Simon Moore, February 2, 2012
Leonard Cohen knows that's a very sneaky title to use at this stage of his career. Offering us the knife and showing us where best to stab him in the back, you might expect most who hear this album to proffer an embarrassed "Oh no, not at all Len, it's dynamic and exciting, what are you talking about?"
He chose the title. He knows what kind of music he's made, and beating us to saying it aloud doesn't make it any less true. So do not expect dynamic or exciting ideas here. Now you know that, the next few paragraphs should go a little easier. Actually, this is only his twelfth studio album. Strange to realise that of a singer/songwriter who's been doing this since the mid '60s.
Less strange is the realisation that these songs tip Cohen's singer/poet persona very much in the latter's favour. He's not singing so much as he is speaking lyrically. Like Dylan or Waits, a lifetime of smoking and hard living has eroded the man's voice away into a sort of rumbling, raspy croak. Cohen never pretended to be a star vocalist, but that's just fine by us. He's 78 years old, and there's more character and depth in his crackly whisper than half the warbly singers sitting at the toppermost of the poppermost.
So what's he whispering about? Sex, love, religion, death. Small talk for this guy. 'Going Home', an eloquently worded self-portrait, is nonetheless a bit of a sputtering start to an erratic sort of record. 'Darkness' is another stumble, trying for a 12 bar blues and not quite getting there. Later on, he goes for a hymnal approach with 'Come Healing'. The backing singers practically carry the song, making it feel disappointingly hokey. That tactic worked back in the eighties with 'First We Take Manhattan', but that was an infinitely more dynamic arrangement, with a far stronger refrain than some guff about a 'penitential hymn'.
'Show Me The Place' is more like what we were promised from 'Old Ideas'. It sounds as if he's woken up slumped in a doorway, with a bottle in his hand that's got more rainwater than wine left in it. So it's fitting that the arrangements here are loose and spartan. This and 'Crazy To Love You' are perhaps the triumphs of this brave method. Simple piano lines on the former and fingerpicked nylon-string guitar on the latter find solace and magic in the clever use of silence. Silence is Cohen's canvas, and he's sketched out just the right kind of curves to suggest a far greater potential beauty.
It's not all faint sketches in the dust; 'Banjo' is a nicely coloured-in country blues, all tasty slide guitar licks and brief cornet flourishes. 'Different Sides' is the only time you feel the need to shuffle your feet, rambling along at an infectious pace. The bass thumps and beats and moves with the drums for once; organ and piano tease one another, it's all starting to come together...and then 'Old Ideas' is over. That was the last track.
The notion of this record, music for the morning after, could've been realised. It wasn't beyond the grasp of Leonard Cohen to make a truly sublime record, something that wouldn't seem out of place standing in for that King Curtis record Paul McGann sticks on in the opening moments of Withnail & I to help him come to terms with it being daylight again.
'Old Ideas' isn't such a bad album. It's all about expectations, really. Cohen's name carries a lot of weight, and most who do know the name haven't heard much beyond 'Suzanne' or 'Hallelujah'. If you're waiting for another 'Bird on a Wire', tough luck, juggins.
Go in expecting rain like Dylan's fans do, and you may like it.
"Sound Tracking: Lana Del Rey album fails to meet lofty expectations"
Leonard Cohen "Old Ideas"
The first album of new material in eight years from 77-year-old Leonard Cohen is solid from start to finish. Staying true to his form, Cohen delivers his words as if they were the last to over cross his lips. His deliberate delivery is done with the same rasp as it always has. "Old Ideas" is Cohen being Cohen. He just has a way with words, both in his writing and singing/talking that is unique to his own style. Cohen is haunting yet warm and sincere. While none of these songs are on par with "Hallelujah," one of his greatest hits, they are up there with some of his best. Check out the tracks "Darkness" and "Going Home".
"Review of the week: Leonard Cohen"
SCORE: 4/5
He's having a laugh, young Lenny. I don't mean taking the piss; he is too much of a gentleman to be mocking us and too much of a craftsman to do this without thought. But for a man making what some already suppose to be his valedictory album, and for an album on which a good number of songs implicitly or explicitly refer to life, death and the tricky bits in between, that chap Cohen sure gets in a fair few laughs.
Often enough at his own expense, too, such as in the opening song, Going Home, in which the omniscient narrator says, "Leonard ... [is a] lazy bastard, living in a suit" who may or may not want to write "an anthem of forgiving/A manual for living with defeat". But as this Leonard does as he is told "he will speak these words of wisdom/like a sage, a man of vision/though he knows he's really nothing/but the brief elaboration of a tube".
On Old Ideas (itself another self-mocking line), the 77-year-old Cohen is even less a singer than when he wryly declared himself "born with the gift of a golden voice" 24 years ago. He rasps and drolly recounts as he leans over your shoulder in Amen; he half chuckles and quarter sings as the Hammond B3 swirls in The Darkness; he defers and deflects as the words ease past in the lazy country sway of Banjo.
But if the golden voice is missing, then so are what we might have called the "27 angels from the great beyond", the heavy presence of female backing vocals that richly - sometimes too richly - decorated his last studio album, 2004's Dear Heather.
We are not deprived of the delicious combination of his deadpan delivery and the counterpoint of sweet voices - in this case, old favourites Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson alongside Dana Glover and the Webb Sisters - but in the main, Old Ideas leaves Cohen out front on his own, which, given the gentle tempo and relaxed temper of these songs, works out just fine. Even when he's taking us on a lamp-lit walk through the bitter tang of an affair gone awry, there's a light brush in his delivery. "I caught the darkness, drinking from your cup/I said is this contagious? You said just drink it up," he says with a sigh of recognition come too late.
Cohen's two recent tours may have been intended as financially restorative but they ended up being artistically and emotionally restorative, too. There's an ease about these songs that belie not just his age but his famously exacting approach to writing.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - 'Old Ideas'"
SoundGuardian (Croatia) by Toni Matošin, February 3, 2012
* * * * (4 stars out of 5)
Ispisujuci nedavno na ovim istim internetskim koordinatama svoju, nenamjerno razvucenu verziju zivotopisa Leonarda Cohena, pricu iste sam u podnaslovu sazeo kao anatomiju ceznje. Jer, uistinu, još uvijek ne pronalazim osobu na svjetskoj estradnoj divljini koja tretira ceznju kao temeljni ljudski poriv i emociju na tako beskompromisan i višeslojan nacin kao taj veliki kanadski meštar od lirike. Stasito koracajuci ka zaokruzenju osam desetljeca zivota, Cohen se na trzištu sad pojavljuje sa svojim (tek) dvanaestim studijskim albumom, porucujuci kako se, usprkos stankama koje industriji djeluju poput malih vjecnosti, njegova radionica nikada nije zatvarala. I brizno timarenoj anatomiji ceznje daje najnoviju, vrlo sugestivnu i bitnu epizodu. Nije ni ovoga puta dostignut nivo njegova posljednjeg velikog remek-djela, vec gotovo cetvrt stoljeca starog "I'm Your Man", no Cohen je ionako isuviše mudra i svestrana glava da mu to bude modus operandi. "Old Ideas" je album nastavka, tretiranje ceznje u autorovom protoku vremena i duhovnoga prostora i u tom smislu funkcionira baš onako kako treba.
Još puneci pedesetu, u vrijeme nastanka izrazenije poboznih djela poput albuma "Various Positions" i zbirke psalama "Knjiga milosrda" (nedavno konacno objavljena i kod nas), Cohen je neminovnom spiralom došao do same srzi starog svog progonitelja i motivatora. Ako je ceznja sudbinska, iskonska potreba za Bozjom milošcu, ljubavi i zavjetnom prisutnošcu, onda ju je autor "Suzanne" dugo razotkrivao, sloj po sloj pojednostavljivao, da bi, što pod stegom godina, što nagomilanih boli i depresija, lutanja i varljivih pronalazenja, "zlatnim glasom" odlucio bez maskiranja opjevati samu njezinu bit. U tom kreativnom koritu "Old Ideas" je uistinu posve nov zaveslaj sa svom silom ostarjelih naprezanja (citaj - je l' te - ideja). Opuštajuc do granica meditativnosti poput "Ten New Songs", neusporedivo uredniji i kompaktniji od fragmentalnog "Dear Heather" (tek da ga stavim u relaciju s prethodnicima), "Old Ideas" se ipak ponajbolje naslanja na davni "Various Positions" koji je svojim tonom i pomirenošcu i utro put, primjerice, "Show Me the Place" i njezinim stihovima poput "Show me the place, for my head is bending low / Show me the place where you want your slave to go / ... / Show me the place where the Word became a man / Show me the place where the suffering began...". Lišen, pak, sladunjave, na sintesajzere naslonjene produkcije tog albuma, najnoviji maestrov uradak kao da vraca Cohena na neka muzicka ishodišta, ali ne kao "povratak korijenima" - jer njegovi su korijeni u goloj rijeci - vec kao suvereno kretanje kruznicom s koje sam Bog zna gdje je mjesto za iskorak.
Od uvodne samoironicne ispovijedi "Going Home" do završne a kraju opiruce "Different Sides" imamo, dakle, Leonarda Cohena u snazi pune stvaralacke zrelosti, po vlastitim rijecima, konacno spremnog i dostojnog da pjeva blues. Sada napokon zvukom blizi Dylanu, ako ne i fokusiranijoj varijanti Waitsa, nego komornoj konfekciji kakva je sakatila prakticki sve njegove albume od osamdesetih naovamo, Cohen djeluje svjezije i više muzicki ambiciozno, mozda i Bogu blize, što je ono što toliko ponizno trazi prakticki otkako je uzeo mikrofon u ruke. "Crazy to Love You", primjerice, i vec spomenuta "Show Me the Place" na to jasno ukazuju, baš kao i neodoljiva, duboka ljepota "Come Healing"; iako su na istoj liniji bile i "The Land of Plenty" ili "A Thousand Kisses Deep" s "Ten New Songs", sada je napokon skinuta bespotrebna zagasitost koja se nenamjerno, pjesmama i albumima unatrag, lijepila uz Cohenov rad. Da, ceznja je mozda ta koja je skinula maske, a stranputice su razotkrivene u svojoj ispraznoj zavodljivosti.
I štogod mislili o njegovoj duhovnosti, koja se i ne baš pretjerano vjerodostojno klati od zidovske tradicije i odgoja preko kršcanske nezaobilaznosti do prakticiranja zen-budizma, Cohen ce vas opet s punocom autoriteta povesti do lirskih sfera koje ne namecu nikakve subjektivne odgovore, ali prenose nade i strahove, krhku filozofiju i ponizne zudnje covjeka koji svakim svojim stihom i zivotnom epizodom cezne i ne moze šutjeti. "Old Ideas" ga dokumentira u punoj lucidnosti i pomirenju - pomirenju ne samo s Bogom vec mozda i vlastitim kreativnim, nerijetko bespoštednim mehanizmom.
"Leonard Cohen - 'Old Ideas'"
SoundGuardian (Croatia) by Toni Matošin, February 3, 2012
Delivering up recently on the same coordinates of your web, inadvertently outstretched version Leonard Cohen, the same story I have summarized in the subtitle as an anatomy of desire. For, indeed, still do not find a person in the world that treats estradnoj wild longing as a fundamental human impulse and emotion in such an uncompromising and multifaceted manner as the great Canadian master of the lyric. Stalwart stepping towards the completion of eight decades of life, Cohen is on the market now appears with its (only) the twelfth studio album, saying that despite the breaks that industry operate like small eternity, his shop is never closed. I carefully timarenoj anatomy of desire provides the latest, highly suggestive and important episode. No this time reached the level of his last great masterpiece, but nearly a quarter century old, "I'm Your Man," but Cohen is already too clever and versatile head that it is his modus operandi. "Old Ideas" is the album continued, the author's treatment of desire in the flow of time and space in the spiritual sense it works like it should.
More filling fifty, at the time the pious works pronounced like the album "Various Positions" and a collection of psalms "The Book of Mercy" (finally published recently by us), Cohen's inevitable spiral came to the very core of his old persecutor and a motivator. If you desire a decisive, primeval need for God's grace, love and votive presence, then it is the author of "Suzanne," exposing a long, simpli layer by layer, to which the discipline of years, as the accumulated pain and depression, wandering, and finding the illusive, "golden voice" decided to sing without masking its very essence. In this creative bed "Old Ideas" is really an entirely new stroke with his force aging stress (read - the l 'and - the idea). Relaxing the limits meditation like "Ten New Songs", much neater and more compact than fragmentalnog "Dear Heather" (just to put it in relation to the antecedents), "Old Ideas" is still the best draws on ancient "Various Positions", which is in its tone and pomirenošcu and paved the way, for example, "Show Me the Place" and its lyrics like "Show me the place, for my head is bending low / Show me the place where you want your fame to go / ... / Show me the place where The Word became a man / Show me the place where the suffering began ... " Deprived, however, sweet, leaning on synthesizers produced the album, the latest clip as Maestro Cohen to return to the origins of a musical, but not as a "return to roots" - because its roots are in the bare words - but as a sovereign move a circle from which God Himself know where the place to step.
Since opening samoironicne confession "Going Home" to the end and finally reluctantly "Different Sides" We have, therefore, Leonard Cohen, the creative force of full maturity, in his own words, finally ready and worthy to sing the blues. Now you sound closer to Dylan, if not fokusiranijoj variants Waits, but the chamber was mutilated confection as virtually all of his albums from the eighties onwards, Cohen appears fresher and more musically ambitious, perhaps closer to God, which is what so humbly asks virtually since the took the microphone in hand. "Crazy to Love You", for example, and the aforementioned "Show Me the Place" to clearly indicate, just as irresistible, profound beauty "Come Healing", even though they were on the same line, and "The Land of Plenty" or "A Thousand Kisses Deep" with the "Ten New Songs", is now finally removed unnecessary zagasitost that unintentionally, songs and albums back, Cohen's work with the adhesive.
Yes, Desire is perhaps the one who took off the mask, and the deviations are revealed in his vain seductions. Something I thought about his spirituality, which is not exactly overly credible slaughter of Jewish tradition and the essential nature of Christian education through the practice of Zen Buddhism, Cohen will again lead to the fullness of authority to the lyrical sphere that does not impose any subjective responses, but convey hopes and fears, fragile philosophy and humble man who desires his verse, and every episode from the life and longs can not be silent. "Old Ideas," it documents the full lucidity and reconciliation - not only reconciliation with God, but perhaps their own creative, often unsparing mechanism.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen et son dernier album "Old Ideas" : le sublime dandysme noir"
Le Nouvel Observateur (France) by Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, February 3, 2012
LE PLUS. Il est des légendes vivantes qui imprègnent le paysage musical pendant des décennies. Leonard Cohen, le ténébreux dandy, en est une. Et son dernier album semble susciter une grande émotion. Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, philosophe, partage son émotion à l'écoute de ce qui est d'ores et déjà, pour lui, un chef-d'oeuvre.
Comment dire, par les mots, le sublime, ce stade suprême - même lorsqu'il se veut d'une tragique noirceur -, de la beauté ?
Raine Maria Rilke, le plus métaphysicien des grands poètes romantiques, avait pour décrire cette dimension supérieure de l'être une formule qui, pour paradoxale qu'elle fût, n'en était pas moins d'une confondante justesse :
"Car le Beau n'est rien autre que le commencement du terrible, qu'à peine à ce degré nous pouvons supporter encore ; et si nous l'admirons, et tant, c'est qu'il dédaigne et laisse de nous anéantir. Tout Ange est terrible.", (in "Elégies de Duino").
Ce stade suprême du sublime, là où l'inaccessible tréfonds de l'âme humaine ne craint pas de faire se côtoyer l'ange et la bête, les dieux de l'esprit et les démons de la chair, Leonard Cohen (l'un des poètes les plus emblématiques de notre temps) vient de l'atteindre, en un sommet artistique d'une rare beauté précisément, avec sa dernière æuvre : un album, intitulé "Old Ideas" qui regroupe dix chansons toutes aussi poignantes les unes que les autres, malgré leur sobriété instrumentale tout autant que leur rigueur stylistique.
C'est que Leonard Cohen, dont la voix toujours bien timbrée n'a jamais été aussi grave, profonde, virilement éraillée et pourtant si délicatement émouvante, presque fragile, dit là ses admirables textes ciselés, portés par des mélodies au rythme d'une lenteur souvent incantatoire, et les chuchote même parfois, plus qu'il ne les chante.
Oui, "Old Ideas" est un hymne à l'étincelante quoique ténébreuse beauté, comme une prière silencieuse en sa discrète éloquence, monument inégalé de poésie psalmodiée et qui, comme tel, passera sans aucun doute à la postérité !
Cet authentique chef-d'æuvre, moment de pure grâce musicale et d'intensité littéraire, ne serait toutefois pas aussi achevé s'il n'y avait, pour accompagner cette voix de céleste outre-tombe et lui conférer sa secrète amplitude tout en lui accentuant sa part d'ombre, les superbes et subtiles harmonies vocales, d'autant plus sensuelles qu'elles viennent là comme par contraste.
On y retrouve quelques-unes des grandes dames de la chanson américaine, tous répertoires confondus, du folk au jazz et du blues au gospel (les traditions yiddish et même celte, elles non plus, ne sont pas absentes, sans oublier un tantinet de soul).
C'est là qu'émergent, particulièrement somptueuses et comme rehaussées par l'infinie douceur de ces voix féminines, enveloppées par l'ineffable langueur d'un violon ou ponctuées par l'insaisissable nostalgie d'un piano, les trois perles de ce qui constitue peut-être là, malgré la richesse de son æuvre antérieure, le meilleur opus de Leonard Cohen : "Going Home", texte à l'ironie aussi cruelle que désabusée, "Show Me The Place", douloureux mais splendide cantique d'amour défunt, et "Come Healing", magnifique appel, quand le ciel et l'enfer se sont entredéchirés et que seule la mort recèle désormais quelque parfum de rédemption, à la réconciliation de l'âme et du corps.
Car c'est bien là ce que Charles Baudelaire appelait en son "Cæur mis à nu" la double postulation simultanée, l'un des thèmes privilégiés, avec la solitude et l'incommunicabilité, les vices et les vertus de l'amour, le pessimisme existentiel et la quête intérieure, de cet éblouissant "Old Ideas" :
"Il y a dans tout homme, à toute heure, deux postulations simultanées, l'une vers Dieu, l'autre vers Satan. L'invocation à Dieu, ou spiritualité, est un désir de monter en grade ; celle de Satan, ou animalité, est une joie de descendre"; (in "Mon coeur mis à nu").
Et en effet, c'est Baudelaire en personne, maudit d'entre les poètes maudits, qui se profile, comme il le fit également autrefois pour un Gainsbourg ou un Bashung, à l'horizon brûlé de ce dandysme noir, quintessence de cet art caractérisant aujourd'hui l'être de cendres qu'est, à l'évidence, Leonard Cohen, ici plus grand que jamais.
D'autant que transparaissent aussi, en ses ultimes textes, d'implicites mais nettes références à la grande littérature américaine du XXe siècle (bien que Cohen soit un canadien de langue anglaise) : on y retrouve tour à tour, au gré du climat de ces ballades plutôt intimistes, des accents inspirés par Tennessee Williams et William Faulkner, par-delà ce désespoir philosophique qui les habite, ainsi que par Ernest Hemingway et William Burroughs, John Fante et Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac et Allen Ginsberg, naguère maîtres incontestés, en ce qui concerne ces derniers, de la très contestataire et même libertaire "Beat Generation".
A Leonard Cohen, dont le divin et pourtant si humain (sinon "trop humain" pour paraphraser un célèbre titre de Nietzsche) "Show Me The Place" sait me bouleverser jusqu'aux larmes, fait rarissime pour un dandy habitué à contenir ses émotions et dissimuler ainsi son être.
Il me plaît, enfin de rappeler, en guise d'ultime hommage à son génie, ces paroles, qui lui vont si bien, de Charles Baudelaire encore :
"Le caractère de beauté du dandy consiste surtout dans l'air froid qui vient de l'inébranlable résolution de ne pas être ému ; on dirait un feu latent qui se fait deviner, qui pourrait mais qui ne veut pas rayonner. (...). Le dandysme est un soleil couchant ; comme l'astre qui décline, il est superbe, sans chaleur et plein de mélancolie". (in "Le Peintre de la vie moderne").
C'est comme si Baudelaire avait effectivement brossé là le portrait, par anticipation, de l'auteur de ce sublime "Old Ideas".
"Leonard Cohen and his latest album "Old Ideas": the sublime black dandyism"
Le Nouvel Observateur (France) by Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, February 3, 2012
MOST. There are legends that permeate the musical landscape for decades. Leonard Cohen, the dark dandy, is one. And his latest album seems to generate great excitement. Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, philosopher, sharing his emotion listening to what is already, for him, a masterpiece.
How to say the words, the sublime, this highest stage - even when it wants a tragic darkness - of beauty?
Raine Maria Rilke, the greatest metaphysician of the great Romantic poets, had to describe this higher dimension of being a formula that, for paradoxical as it was, was nevertheless an astounding accuracy:
"For the Beautiful is nothing other than the beginning of the terrible, barely at that level we can stand still and if we admire, and so is that he disdains to annihilate us and leaves. While Angel is terrible." (in "Duino Elegies").
The supreme point of the sublime, where the inaccessible innermost depths of the human soul does not fear to let mingle the angel and the beast, the spirit of the gods and demons of the flesh, Leonard Cohen (one of the most iconic poets of our time) has just achieved it, in an artistic summit of precise and rare beauty, with his latest work, an album entitled "Old Ideas" which gathers ten songs each as poignant as the other, despite their sober instrumentation as well as their stylistic rigor
Is that Leonard Cohen, whose voice still resonant was never as serious, deep, husky manly and yet so delicately touching, almost fragile, says there his wonderful carved texts, melodies carried by the rhythm of a slowness often incantatory, and sometimes even whispers, more than he sings.
Yes, "Old Ideas" is a hymn to the sparkling beauty though dark, like a silent prayer in his quiet eloquence, unequaled monument of chanted poetry and, as such, will no doubt posterity!
This authentic masterpiece, moment of pure musical grace and literary intensity, however, would not also completed if there were to accompany the voice of heaven beyond the grave and give him his secret amplitude while him accentuating his dark side, superb vocal harmonies and subtle, more sensual as they come there for contrast.
It includes some of the great ladies of American song, all directories combined, from folk to jazz and blues to gospel (the traditions of Yiddish and even Celtic, too, are not absent, not to mention a bit of soul).
This is where emerge, particularly sumptuous and as enhanced by the infinite sweetness of the female voices, wrapped in the ineffable languor of a violin or the elusive nostalgia punctuated by a piano, the three pearls of this which is perhaps, despite the wealth of his earlier work, the best album of Leonard Cohen: "Going Home", the text as cruel irony that disillusioned, "Show Me The Square", painful but beautiful hymn of dead love, and "Come Healing", a magnificent appeal, when heaven and hell are entredéchirés that only death and now contains some perfume of redemption, reconciliation of the soul and body.
For it is really what Charles Baudelaire called in his "Heart Laid Bare" double simultaneous postulation, one of the favorite themes, with loneliness and lack of communication, the vices and virtues of love, existential pessimism and the inner quest, this dazzling "Old Ideas":
"There is in every man, every hour, two simultaneous tendencies, one toward God, the other toward Satan. Invocation to God, or spirituality, is a desire to gain rank, that of Satan, or animality, is a joy to come down"; (in "My heart laid bare").
And indeed, it was Baudelaire himself , cursed of the damned poets, looming, as he did also used for Gainsbourg or Bashung, burned on the horizon of this black dandyism, the quintessence of the art now characterizing the ash be what, obviously, Leonard Cohen, here more than ever.
Especially as reflected also in his final text, but net implicit references to the great twentieth-century American literature (though Cohen is a Canadian English-language): there are turns, at the option of climate these rather intimate ballads, accents inspired by Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner, beyond this philosophical despair that inhabits them, and by Ernest Hemingway and William Burroughs, John Fante and Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, once the undisputed masters, regarding the latter, the very same rebellious and libertarian "Beat Generation".
A Leonard Cohen, whose divine and yet so human (if not "too human" to paraphrase a famous title of Nietzsche) "Show Me The Place" knows me upset to tears, a rare occurrence for a dandy used to contain his emotions and thus conceal his being.
I like, finally, to recall, as an ultimate tribute to his genius, these words, which go so well, yet Charles Baudelaire:
"The character of the dandy is especially beautiful in the cold air that comes from steadfast resolution not to be moved, it looks like a latent fire which is guess, but that might does not radiate. (...) Dandyism is a setting sun as the star which is declining, it is superb, without heat and full of melancholy." (in "The Painter of Modern Life").
It is as if Baudelaire had actually brushed the portrait, by anticipation, the author of that sublime "Old Ideas".
"Cohen soars to a place above the suffering"
* * * * (4 stars out of 5)
Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen
(Sony)
WHEN Leonard Cohen calls himself "a lazy bastard living in a suit", he's only partly referring to the black uniform that hangs on his shrinking mortal frame. The song is called Going Home. And no, he doesn't mean some mansion in Bel Air or tax haven in Switzerland, either.
Preparation for the great unknown has naturally preoccupied the revitalised songwriter these past 10 years. Nowhere more than here, where he speaks of his higher and baser selves as patient partners in an alliance of ego and purpose from which both will soon be free. And all with the self-deprecating wit and gospel gravity that balance his very best work. At 77, neither his gifts nor his popularity are fading fast.
Old Ideas is his third album since he returned from that Zen Buddhist monastery on Mount Baldy and his first since his surprise raid on a global touring circuit ravenous - who would have thought? - for something more spiritually affirming than bright lights and noise.
The hymnal Show Me the Place encapsulates that tour's abiding image: the singer on one knee, eyes closed, microphone held between open palms. "Show me the place where you want your slave to go," he whispers, his charcoal rasp almost failing with the ecstasy of divine surrender.
Lord knows, he's sinned. The slow, comical bouzouki twang of Amen drags him backwards into a hard-drinking haze full of Old Testament torments. Funnier and darker still, the spoken words of Anyhow ooze the shameless lust of a closing time drunk over a queasy cocktail bar shuffle.
Darkness is more bitter, an accusatory blues that claims the moral high ground from the wreckage of an old relationship, but manages to say far more about the ugliness of blame than about the Jezebel in question. This one and Crazy To Love You, a gorgeous, soft-focus waltz for his solo folk guitar, recall the murderous and lyrical extremes of his early '70s classics: a tacit affirmation of just how long he's known his business.
That said, in the context of his recent albums - the career high of Ten New Songs; even the less cohesive Dear Heather - a few of these songs come over as slightly anaemic. A perfunctory melody and the familiar, feather-light chorus of Charlie and Hattie Webb fail to distinguish Come Healing. And with its allusions to the Israeli/Palestinian standoff, the rather stodgy Different Sides feels like an underdeveloped afterthought where a climactic note of Cohen-esque insight might have drawn a whole new line on the roadmap.
But according to the higher mission outlined in Going Home, solutions of that kind are small change: "He wants to write a love song/An anthem of forgiving/A manual for living with defeat/A cry above the suffering/A sacrifice recovering/But that isn't what I need him to complete."
Meanwhile, Cohen's earthly failures are close enough to manna for the rest of us.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Crítica de Old Ideas de Leonard Cohen"
Simenor (Spain) by Irene, February 3, 2012
Empieza a sonar el disco y la inconfundible voz grave, casi susurrada, va deslizándose entre tempos pausados y bien marcados puestos estratégicamente en lugar correcto; no cabe lugar a duda, se trata del nuevo trabajo de Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas. Acompañado de unas guitarras tímidas, como ya tiene acostumbrados a sus fans, el maestro canadiense ha vuelto con material nuevo después de 8 años, y sigue siendo el mismo de siempre.
Otra vez se nos presenta un disco perfecto en cuanto a letras, profundas como la voz que les da vida. Los temas de Leonard Cohen vuelven a ser las viejas ideas que siempre han ocupado sus reflexiones: el amor, la vida, la espiritualidad, Dios... tratados con la habitual delicadeza y fragilidad de las melodías y un protagonismo adecuado de cada uno de los instrumentos en el momento justo, como algo hecho con mucho cuidado, precisión y detalle.
Old Ideas de Leonard Cohen da comienzo con dos de las joyas del disco. Empezando con Going Home (de la que ya hablamos en su momento), esa autorreflexión sobre lo que ha sido su vida, ocupado escribiendo canciones de amor para superar las derrotas. A ella le sigue Amen, una de esas canciones que entran y se te clavan en los huesos como el duro frío del invierno canadiense que tanto ha sufrido Cohen en Montreal.
El ritmo sube con Darknes, otro de los adelantos que tuvimos del disco hace tiempo, canción que junto a Banjo se postula como la más bluesera del disco, temas perfectamente compuestos que irán seduciendo poco a poco al público. Y han tenido que pasar décadas para volver a encontrar aLeonard Cohen sin la compañía de su banda ni de coros. En Crazy to Love You el susurro de Cohen aparece jugando sólo con su guitarra acústica.
Y si el disco empezaba con dos joyas, no podía terminar de otra manera que no fuera por todo lo alto. Coros femeninos y Leonard Cohen consiguen una de las mejores uniones hasta ahora en la canción Different Sides, aunque sus fusiones en el resto de Old Ideas tampoco tienen nada que envidiarle a este tema que cierra un disco muy completo y redondo que, aun llegando a principios de 2012 va a ser de los mejores del año.
Han sido demasiados años sin material nuevo del canadiense, pero ha merecido la pena la espera. Porque, líricamente, Cohen ha recobrado su mejor cara. Por supuesto que no al nive del maravillosoI'm Your Man (1988) o de The Future (1992) (es imposible), pero con las composiciones de Old Ideas Leonard Cohen vuelve a convencer al público y le hace olvidar sus momentos más flojos con su anterior disco Dear Heather.
"Review of Old Ideas of Leonard Cohen"
Simenor (Spain) by Irene, February 3, 2012
Starts playing the disc and the unmistakable deep voice, almost whispering, leisurely tempos glides between strategically placed and clearly marked in the right place, there can be no doubt, this is the new work of Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas. Accompanied by a timid guitar, as his fans are accustomed to, the Canadian master is back with new material after 8 years, and remains the same as always.
Again we are presented with a perfect record in terms of lyrics, deep as the voice that gives them life. The themes of Leonard Cohen revert to the old ideas that have always occupied his thoughts: love, life, spirituality, God... treated with the usual delicacy and fragility of the melodies and an appropriate role for each of the instruments the right time, something made with much care, precision and detail.
Old ideas of Leonard Cohen starts with two of the jewels of the disc. Beginning with Going Home (which we discussed at the time), that self-reflection on what has been his life, busy writing songs of love to overcome the losses. She is Love, one of those songs that you enter and dig into the bones and the hard cold Canadian winter long-suffering Cohen in Montreal.
The rate rises with Darkness, another of the advances we had the long drive, song with Banjo is postulated as the most bluesy drive, well made items that will gradually seduce the public. And they had to go back decades to find Leonard Cohen without the company of his band or chorus. In Crazy to Love You the whisper of Cohen appears playing only with his acoustic guitar.
And if the album began with two jewels, could not end any other way that was not in style. Female choirs and Leonard Cohen get one of the best bonds so far in the song Different Sides, though their merger in the rest of Old Ideas also have nothing to envy to the issue that closes a comprehensive disk and round, even coming in early of 2012 will be the year's best.
He was too many years without new material from Canada, but it was worth the wait. Because, lyrically, Cohen has regained his best side. Of course, not the levels of the wonderful I'm Your Man(1988) or The Future (1992) (impossible), but with the compositions of Old Ideas Leonard Cohen returns to convince the public and makes him forget his weakest moments with his last album Dear Heather.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
OUTsiders (Italy) by Davide Agazzi, February 1, 2012
4 of 5 stars
Pro: Sicuramente il miglior ritorno sulle scene per il cantante canadese. La nuova voce in stile Tom Waits è qualcosa di ipnotico.
Contro: I brani potevano essere distribuiti meglio. L'entusiamo iniziale tende, inevitabilmente, a calare col trascorrere delle tracce.
Che cosa succede agli artisti di una certa età? Invecchiano. Proprio come noi, anche se, a differenza nostra, loro, che hanno trascorso la vita a scrivere canzoni e poesie, non possono smettere di lavorare. Non possono smettere di fare quello per cui sono nati. Per quasi tutti i cantautori, la pensione non esiste. Continuano a scrivere, a deliziare le nostre orecchie finchè possono, ma a volte cambiano. E' cambiato Dylan, è cambiato Cash ed ora, alla sua veneranda età, è cambiato anche Cohen. La nuova voce del cantautore canadese stravolge una vita di malinconia, ma si colloca perfettamente nella carriera di uno dei migliori poeti del '900. Le nuove, vecchie, idee di questo 2012 parlano di un Cohen che vuole ancora dire la sua, con un tono più profondo e grave, che sorprende e commuove. Cohen è più schietto che mai, non vuole mentire a sé stesso.Il suo futuro è oscuro (Darkness), forse questo sarà il suo ultimo disco e quindi bisogna fare le cose per bene. Un album che, più di sempre, trasmette un calore spirituale intenso (Amen), sincero ed autoironico, che guarda la morte senza rassegnazione. Tom Waits, anch'egli da poco resuscitato con uno dei suoi dischi più riusciti degli ultimi anni, ascolta fiero, e osserva la trasformazione del cantautore canadese. Il nuovo Cohen trae finalmente i frutti dell'esperienza solitaria nei monasteri zen e le ripropone nel country solitario di Banjo e nei vari gospel disseminati nel disco, tra cui emerge Come Healing. E sono le voci soavi di Sharon Robinson, Jennifer Warnes e delle Webb Sisters a bilanciare questo nuovo timbro tenebroso, inciso col catrame su caldo vinile. Sulla soglia degli 80 anni, con sedici registrazioni sulle spalle, Cohen scherza con Dio sulle note di Going Home e si definisce un "pigro bastardo in abito elegante", ammettendo poi, al momento della presentazione di Old Ideas, di aver forse esagerato un po' riguardo all'abito. Il disco, che regala le cose migliori nei primi brani, è un lavoro sentito, certamente non registrato tanto per fare. Un album che schizza fuori dal tempo, abbandona le frenesie digitali e si propone come la dolce carezza di un nonno sensibile, di cui tutti sentiremo sempre il bisogno.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
OUTsiders (Italy) by Davide Agazzi, February 1, 2012
4 of 5 stars
Pro: Definitely the best comeback for the Canadian singer. The new entry-style Tom Waits is something hypnotic.
Cons: The songs could be better distributed. The initial enthusiasm tends, inevitably, to fall with the passage of the tracks.
What happens to the artists of a certain age? Older. Just like us, although, unlike ours, their, who spent his life writing songs and poems, can not stop working. They can not stop doing what they're born. For almost all the songwriters, the pension does not exist. They continue to write, to delight our ears long as they can, but sometimes change. And 'changed Dylan, Cash has changed and now, upon his venerable age, Cohen is also changed. The new voice of Canadian singer-songwriter twists a life of melancholy, but it fits perfectly in approx rriera one of the best poets of the '90. The new, old ideas of this 2012 speak of a Cohen who still wants to have his say in a voice deeper and more serious, surprising and moving. Cohen is more outspoken than ever, does not want to lie to themselves stesso. Il its future is unclear (Darkness), maybe this will be his last album and then have to do things right. An album that, more than ever, transmits an intense spiritual heat (Amen), self-ironic and sincere, looking death without resignation. Tom Waits, who also recently resurrected one of his most successful records in recent years, proudly listens, and observes the transformation of the Canadian singer-songwriter. The new Cohen finally gets the fruits of experience in Zen monasteries and lonely in the country once again lonely banjo and various gospel spread throughout the disc, including apparent as Healing. And are the gentle voices of Sharon Robinson, Webb Sisters Jennifer Warnes and to balance this new dark tone, etched with hot tar on vinyl. On the threshold of 80 years, with sixteen recordings on his shoulders, Cohen jokes with God to the tune of Going Home and calls himself a "lazy bastard in elegant dress", then admitting, at the time of presentation of Old Ideas, that it might have overdone it a bit about the dress. The disc, which features the best things in the early passages, the work is heard, certainly not registered to do so. An album that squirts out of time and leaves the digital frenzy and aims to be the gentle caress of a grandfather-sensitive, which everyone always feel the need.
"New Music - LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas (Columbia)"
4 stars
THERE are no real surprises on this, the 12th studio album, from the venerated Bard of Montreal, whose body of recorded work is one of the miracles of contemporary culture.
In these 10 broodingly meditative cuts, Cohen continues to cloak his modest musical gifts and minimalist esthetic in mordant lyrics and sepulchral vocals that locate, to quote his acolyte Jennifer Warnes, "the place where God and sex and literature meet."
An additional intersection this time is clearly mortality. For Cohen, 77, as with Bob Dylan in his recent outings, it's not dark yet, but it's getting there. "I got no future/ I know my days are few," Leonard sings -- although declaims is probably a more fitting verb -- in tune No. 4, Darkness.
"The present's not that pleasant/ Just a lot of things to do/ I thought the past would last me/ But the darkness got that too."
Devoted listeners will hear, in the album's tasteful instrumentation and the songs' melodic structures, sounds that harken as far back as Cohen's third album, 1971's Songs of Love and Hate. There are also echoes, needless to say, of his last studio album, the under-rated Dear Heather from 2004.
That Cohen had originally wanted to call that one Old Ideas provides a clue not just to his preoccupations but also to his working methods.
Most of his touring band members contribute, as does his longtime muse Anjani Thomas. New is Madonna's producer Patrick Leonard, whom Cohen met when the latter worked on his son Adam's recent solo effort.
In the end, of course, a Leonard Cohen album always bears the master's imprint. Contrary to the self-deprecating line from the already iconic opening cut, Going Home, it's evident that Cohen is the furthest thing from being "a lazy bastard in a suit."
"Cohen's new album sees a return to form"
Throughout his 45-year career, Leonard Cohen has walked a fine line between love, sex, and religion, often embodying the trinity in the same song. Cohen doesn't abandon those themes on his latest album, Old Ideas, his first studio recording in eight years and perhaps one of his best in decades.
Part of the reason the record succeeds is the honesty that the 77-year singer-songwriter delivers as he questions mortality, god, and betrayal with poetic dignity.
In 2005, Cohen's former manager took the liberty of emptying his savings accounts, leaving the deep-voiced troubadour nearly broke. And though the singer won a civil suit in 2006, it's not believed that he's collected any money back. As a result, Cohen has had to spend his retirement years on the road singing for his supper.
But out of this adversity comes an album rooted heavily in his signature prayer-like delivery with an air of aesthetic realism.
Old Ideas kicks off with Going Home, a poem written by Cohen and set to music by Cohen and co-writer Patrick Leonard. Hearing Cohen's nearly-spoken voice delivery, it becomes a powerful ditty of Cohen's spiritual foundation as well as how he sees himself.
In the song, God says Cohen does what he tells him, even though it's not always welcome. This sets the tone for the remainder of album of a man tormented by mistakes of the past and his growing older.
Cohen has never been a stranger to religious overtones: After all, he's the man that wrote Hallelujah, which became immortalised by the late Jeff Buckley.
But this album seems to provide more weighted spiritual balance. It's not religious, at least in any organised form, but it's definitely more pious than usual. One has to go no further than the record's second track Amen, a lengthy ominous piece that seems diametric to Hallelujah, where the singer questions if he's understood by god.
Minimal instrumentation helps support the album's 10 tracks, dominated by Cohen's raspy baritone delivery. While instrumentation varies from guitar to steel guitar and piano and bass, there's a nice compliment of percussive rhythms and background vocals.
CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: Even on first listen, the album's most upbeat track, Banjo (not saying much for the slow-paced album) plays as comfort food for the ears.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Old Ideas - Leonard Cohen"
"Old Ideas - Leonard Cohen"
"I am honored to share this award with Chuck Berry. Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news - I wanted to write this line." This excerpt from an interview with Leonard Cohen, which he and the group leader l The Pulp Jarvis Cocker on the eve of the release of his new album "Old Ideas". This is a prize for outstanding literary merit of song lyrics, which presents the PEN New England. Leonard Cohen - one of the two most prominent poets, singers of our time. A relatively recent return of Mr. Cohen's concert activity led to a much greater interest than the measured long Sanchez Bob Dylan under the great name "Endless Tour." Some of those songs that have entered into a new CD of Leonard Cohen, you could hear in his tour, which consisted of 247 shows. A total of 10 rooms album. And from each clear why Leonard Cohen rightly put on a par with my grandfather dancing rock 'n' roll.
The main advantage of "Old Ideas", the first 8 years of studio LP Leonard Cohen - a combination of literary recognizable handwriting and reinforced traditional musical structures. This folk ballads and blues in the classic sense, it is standard on the timing of pop songs. And it is the author, who in his classical work plan for the disclosure of less rare enough for 5-6 minutes. If you want, "Old Ideas", along with the grueling tour, it can be seen as another step towards the maestro of Buddhist cultivation.
Voice of Leonard Cohen's 77 years to become even lower, earthy, and that he was still in the complication on the part of the smoke. The songs were shorter and emche. The apocalyptic despair, memorable soundtrack for a "Natural Born Killers," there is, perhaps, only in the final issue of "Different Sides", and then diluted with frivolous keyboards. Is the song "Banjo". Gypsy violin, as well as other European imports, no. It's very American in spirit to the record. Sharon Robinson and the Webb sisters, as well as a tour, give the recording features Cohen recognizable sound. Finally, the Russian students have the opportunity to assess the similarity of the song "Come Healing" with the song "In the forest was born herringbone". So far, only in the record, but Mr. Cohen would not mind going back on tour.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Golden mean"
OpenSpace (Russia) by Sergey Stepanov, February 1, 2012
"Golden mean"
OpenSpace (Russia) by Sergey Stepanov, February 1, 2012
Leonard Cohen, who had just decorated the sixth decade of the album in a row, the notes of the city, where he was born and sometimes lived
If you think that the world is too many cover versions of songs "Hallelujah" , come to Montreal. In the eyes of nine of the ten teams who come here to give the audience the best way to understand remember that the musicians, where the play is just a cover version of "Hallelujah" (or, if you're lucky, "Who by Fire"). This is one of the many reasons that make listening to the 12th studio album, Cohen's "Old Ideas" in an apartment in the Plateau Mont-Royal, a special experience. In the end, as recently as last week, my wife was raised with the maestro in the elevator in the nearby office building, after which it became clear that similar memories can be shared just about all of her colleagues. I understand that this is a strange subject for pride, but still proud of: it turns out, when Leonard Cohen in his hometown, he - my neighbor.
Cohen, who and what is for the Montreal and across Canada, is easy to understand. Just remember that twenty years ago no one heard anything about the Arcade Fire, or about Leslie Feist, Rufus Ueynrayte or about, much less about The Weeknd with Deadmau5. Twenty years ago the phrase "the music of Canada" was associated with Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and Sarah McLachlan, at best, with the Crash Test Dummies , ideally - with Neil Young. Well, it is clear that Cohen, in this sense - not just an indulgence for all the national sins against humanity, including Nickelback , but also a constant, which is not enough. Excellent plate Cohen graced the 60th ( "Songs from Leonard Cohen" ), 70 ("Songs of Love and Hate" ), 80 ("Various Positions" ), 90("The Future" ), null ( "Ten New Songs" ). And now - 2010s.
Somewhere in between times Cohen wound up wild stories, which then sang, and went to the monastery, was filmed for TV and film classics sounded contemporary, inspired artists ranging from Jeff Buckley to U2; finally left without the efforts of the pension fund manager and returned to travel around the world with a three-hour concerts. At a recent press conference at the exit "Old Ideas" for Cohen politely asked if he did not believe his own grueling tour schedule. In a 77-year-old musician, grinning, recalled his, and now practicing teachers from the Zen Buddhist center in California: "I was well trained by his mentor - he is now one hundred and four." So, "Old Ideas", 12th Cohen album, begins with the words accesses Leonard ("athlete, pastor, and a lazy bastard in a suit") and God does not fall below the move taken slats almost never. It's ten simple, beautiful and wise master of the songs on favorite themes - love and sex, the soul and death - while not sounding as the old man's morality, as well as lively and fresh, as written by forty-five years ago "Suzanne" and "The partisan". He played a song called "Amen", or "Darkness" - it's not five cents in the treasury of a century, but the only important, final, definitive statement on the subject.
However, the fact that Cohen - a great poet, know more or less everything. As, probably, that the music of 33-year-old Leonard, one of the most famous poets at that time Canada has moved in the hope of better wages. And though the lyrics "Old Ideas" worthy of the highest praise, the same can be said at this time and the Cohen-singer (who can still exude honey with venom, saying the line "Even though you have to hate me / Could you hate me less?" ), and Cohen-musician. Clearly entered a taste during the recent tour, he temporarily forgot about his fascination with synthesizers, choosing the tools that his songs are much better: guitar, keyboards, unobtrusive, girlish backing vocal harmonies - the tandem until Cohen and acoustic guitars on "Crazy to Love you", for the first time in many years, reminiscent of his early albums. Effect of listening to "Old Ideas" - a precious, rare and unexpected experience. Something - in the sense of the level of respect, multiplied by the degree of admiration and pripechatat label Instant Classic, - accompanied once Releases "Time Out of Mind" Bob Dylan and the "American V" Johnny Cash. The only (significant) difference is that Dylan at the time "Time Out of Mind" and was sixty, and the 'American V" was released after the death of Cash. Cohen's new album maintains the balance between the confessional and Dylan keshevskoy observation, between the sharpness of mind and the strength of attraction between the old ideas and fresh reading. The golden mean - that has nothing to do with conformism, or with mediocrity, but finding comfort and meaning in what others think wild chaos.
The only question that the present exemplary Cohen ignores his newfound status of a grandfather last winter Lorca Cohen gave birth to a daughter of Rufus Wainwright - a prominent Montreal singer (executing, among other things "Hallelujah" ) and a gay icon (a girl brought up Lorca, Rufus and his partner - German producer Jörn Weissbrodt). Like it or not, but the birth of a child named not just a subject for a sitcom in the spirit of the "American family", but the moment, getting the two main musical clan of Canada. One can assume, without fear of contradiction: Please do not Cohen's granddaughter is committed, not because she reminded him that he is mortal. First, the great songs on this theme, he sang more than anyone else. And secondly, one of the undisputed authority for Leonard - his 104-year-old mentor. And if God would allow his beloved son of bitch to follow the appropriate example, the "Old Ideas" for Cohen - not a swansong and the ending is not brilliant career, but - so sure - its golden mean.
It would be great.
"Pleasures yet to be had: Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas'"
It has been said of writers that, though their body of work contains numerous titles, they've really produced just a single book, variously revised.
The same can be said of Leonard Cohen, whose songs are, thematically, variations on a lifelong, personal disquietude. One in which longing always has the last word after yet another antidote has worn off. One in which the lament expressing inner turmoil over "the great defeat that awaits us all" ought to be rendered -- as he puts it -- with an ear for beauty and dignity.
The desire behind each declaration, as it comes through a Cohen song, may be to reach some resolution. But, since the conversation one has about certain fundamental matters is necessarily only with oneself, the questions become unanswerable. The spiritual, the cerebral, the carnal become pursuits without end -- their meaning never in danger of being nailed down.
Unanswerable questions, then, are part of what tantalizes the listener of Cohen's songs. That, and the way he approaches those three pursuits, which often seem indistinguishable.
Just when one feels that Cohen is addressing the Lord of song, just when one thinks the Y in a reverentially sung 'You' couldn't be bigger, one realizes he may be addressing a lover. And vice versa. Until it becomes evident there is no reason to make a distinction between the two.
Giving thanks in October for an award in front of the comically stoic Spanish royalty, Cohen spoke of his indebtedness to Iberian soil. For his voice, which he honed upon discovering the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. For his song, which he honed in the wake of a chance meeting with a stranger playing a flamenco guitar in a park in Montreal.
As Cohen tells it, the young musician, who was Spanish, agreed to give him lessons, and through several encounters, impressed upon him six chords (played with a tremolo), which are the basis of much flamenco music. The common language between the two men was broken French -- enough to get at the matter at hand. Not enough to get to know each other.
The tutelage ended when the Spaniard didn't appear for another go. A call to the boarding house where the musician was staying revealed he had committed suicide.
Unanswerable questions. A tragic end. But also a door to a life of music swung open.
Those six chords, said Cohen, have been the source for all his songs.
And so it goes on.
And it is no surprise that on "Old Ideas" Cohen mines the preoccupations that have been with him from the beginning. The chart that holds the legend to it all has been available since 1967, when the first three stanzas of his debut album hit the air waves.
"Suzanne" took the listener down to the threshold where the needs of the body and the mind meet. That was Cohen at 33.
At 77, he's after the same union, with mortality hanging lower on the horizon. The ten songs which map the pursuit feel whittled down to the essentials. Deceptively simple but resonant instrumentation. Cohen's sonorous phrasing in well-wrought counterpoint to the voices of the various women who -- though singing backup -- are integral to the mood of each song. Rarely has a bongo drum been so surprisingly poignant as on "Coming Home." (Is the song's narrator the voice in the singer's head? Is it a voice from some ineffable elsewhere? Perhaps it amounts to the same thing.)
Facing the inevitable, humor still has a way of getting in.
Yes, as "Come Healing" suggests in hymnal tones, the overriding attitude may be penitential. But, just when the sadness couldn't run deeper, Cohen's inner-Zorba interjects with impish abandon and reminds the self that there are pleasures yet to be had, so let's have them:
"You want to live where the suffering is
I want to get out of town
C'mon baby give me a kiss
Stop writing everything down
Both of us say there are laws to obey
But frankly I don't like your tone
You want to change the way I make love
I want to leave it alone"
The violin, charged once more with playing a crucial role, pierces the air with melodies that bring to mind Cohen's perennial companions: gypsies, furiously alive.
The meandering trumpet solo on "Amen" ranks, by sheer heartrending loveliness, among the finest musical moments in Cohen's career.
A Spanish guitar, which echoes some of his earliest work, helps make "Crazy to Love You" a serenade that's truly "deeper than any goodbye."
A country-blues bent gives "Banjo" just the right rhythm to let one suspect the very nature of what's coming from that "dark infested sea." Its effect not unlike that of an Ars Poetica, as a musician, aware of his lot, has it.
A measure of the quality of Cohen's lyrics has always been that one continues to find in them new meaning. They are worth considering, in Pound's sense, as the sailor considers the seaboard. That is, through an evolving perspective, which changes as the ship moves.
There is one noticeable shift. Cohen is now inclined to rely on fewer lines, to return to notions that have anchored many of his past songs, to repeat whole stanzas as if to emphasize that what he means to say is all there and needs no further elaboration.
Hearing "Old Ideas" is witnessing the inner-workings of one man's lyrical mind. In words that he has made his own. Through songs in which it's apparent no other words would as perfectly belong.
If that's not enough, it behooves one to look inward and ask oneself: "You don't really care for music, do you?"
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen Old Ideas"
Slobodna Dalmacija (Croatia) by Zlazko Gall, February 6, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
Baš kao i on, koji je kao "late bloomer" glazbenu karijeru zapoceo tek u tridesetima, i ja sam u slucaju Leonarda Cohena imao kasno paljenje. Dobro, kao i svi "iz pedeset i nekih", na prvu sam posrkao "Suzanne", "Sisters Of mercy", "So Long Marianne", "Bird On The Wire" i "Famous Blue Raincoat", oduševio se melankolicnim baladama s minimalistickim aranzmanima i Cohenovom osebujnom narativnom "rašpom".
štoviše, film "McCabe & Mrs Miller" (kod nas poznatiji kao "Kockar i bludnica") nisam samo zbog omiljenog redatelja Roberta Altmana, vec i zbog sjajne Cohenove glazbene participacije, trajno uvrstio na popis vlastitih favorita. Ipak, priznajem, unatoc sjajnim pjesmama, cije sam slojevite tekstove, kao i mnogi tinejdzeri, "dešifrirao" tek uz pomoc rjecnika, Cohen mi je ubrzo poceo ici na zivce. Dijelom stoga jer je postao nešto kao "rockerski" ili "glazbeni alibi" za štrebere i pseudointelektualne kruzoke koji tih najranijih sedamdesetih nisu baš razumjeli rock and roll.
Zlatne godine
Za reci pravo, vecinu odanih "cohenofila" cinile su buduce studentice komparativne knjizevnosti te "elitisti" koji su otvoreno prezirali tada vec "pokojnog" Hendrixa i Cream, a senzacionalne albume koji su se pojavili iste sezone kad i Cohenov "Songs Of Love And Hate", poput "Who's Next", "Led Zeppelin IV" ili "Sticky Fingers", drzali manje vrijednom robom masovne potrošnje. Cohena sam zapravo ponovo otkrio na isteku sedamdesetih i pocetkom osamdesetih.
Naravno, duboko svjestan ne samo trajne aktualnosti njegovih cudesnih i sugestivnih melankolicnih balada, vec i golemog utjecaja koji je izvršio na generacije kasnijih protagonista singer-songwriterske (kantautorske) scene. Ništa manje ni na predvodnike gothic-americane te mnoge druge zanrovski neuhvatljive figure uzgojene na trolistu apsolutno izvanvremenih i senzacionalnih albuma: "Songs Of Leonard Cohen", "Songs From A Room" te "Songs Of Love And Hate".
O razlozima Cohenova povratka na koncertnu scenu 2009., zabiljezenu i na dvama sjajnim koncertnim albumima -- "Love In London" (2009.) te godinu kasnijeg "Live From The Road", odavno se vec sve znade. No, ma kako da se vješto aranzmanski pretumbale stare uspješnice i opca mjesta jedne impresivne diskografije, a Cohen bljesnuo kao -- cak i komunikativan -- koncertni izvodac, u zraku je ostalo visjeti pitanje je li gospodin u "zlatnim godinama" i dalje potentan autor.
Bez patetike
"Old Ideas" je dao pravi odgovor na dilemu. Cohen, naime, i kao autor zivi novu mladost! Prvi Cohenov studijski album nakon "Dear Heather" iz 2004. nije samo kolekcija pjesama dostojnih ugleda i karijere velikog Leonarda, vec jedan od njegovih najboljih albuma. Sve je tu "isto". Najprije onaj uvjerljivi i neponovljivi "bronhiticni" glas, koji u sebi nosi melodioznost i atmosferu "cohenovštine" kojoj gotovo da ne treba nikakva glazbena pratnja. Tu su i teme koje, kako vec to kod Cohena obicno biva, zadiru u samu srz ljudskog postojanja.
Teme ljubavi, prekinutih veza, patnje i nade, zivota i smrti, baš kao i religijske referentne tocke i prispodobe... dio su "starog" repertoara, no ovaj put ispricane s nekom gotovo nestvarnom duhovnošcu i emocionalnošcu. "Amen" je, recimo, nova "Hallelujah": njezna bluesy skladba koju valja, bez obzira jeste li tvrdoglavi ateist, agnostik ili vjernik, prisvojiti kao osobnu molitvu, a njezin refren, s gospel ugodajem, kao pravu-pravcatu "ljubavnu misu".
Njezno prebiranje bendza i akcenti violine iznad gugutavih orgulja i sporovoznog ritma naglašenog lijenim udarcima metlica po dobošu, Cohenov vokal u reprezentativnom narativnom mrmljanju s mikrofonom priljubljenim uz usta, što stvara dojam kao da vam Gospod Bog šapce velike ljubavne istine ravno u uho, ima onozemaljski ugodaj i razarajucu njeznost. Nova velika pjesma na drsko bogatom popisu Cohenove zimzeleni!
Bez patetike i dociranja o velikim istinama jer Cohen, koji se i na "Old Ideas" koristi blagotvornim ucincima samoironije i crnog humora (ocite i u stihu o "lijenom gadu u odijelu" utkanom u uvodnu "Going Home"), baš nikada nije zelio biti prvosvecenik vlastita kulta. Album nije raden "na dah", odnosno na inspiraciju koja se javila ili u samom studiju ili za "kreativne ognjice" u izolaciji neke egzoticne adrese.
Pace, neke od skladbi -- poput "Amen" i "Lullaby", snimljene su u drugim verzijama još 2007., dok je "Darkness" prije aktualne studijske premijere Cohen izvodio i uzivo na recentnijim koncertima višegodišnje turneje. Turneja koju su obiljezili sjajni aranzmani uz iskorak prema razlicitim zanrovskim prostorima svakako je odredila i zanrovsko-stilski teritorij novog albuma.
Country, gospel, blues, jazzy natruhe te oni dobro znani raskošni zenski pozadinski vokali -- kao simbolican "sudar" ovozemaljske Cohenove bronhiticne vokalne "rašpe" i onozemaljskih nebeskih harmonija -- cine u glazbenom i produkcijskom smislu uopce, "Old Ideas" logicnim studijskim nastavkom dvaju prethodnih koncertnih zapisa. Pokazala je to na samom pocetku melodiozna "Going Home" s baš sjajnim zenskim pozadinskim vokalima, koja se mirne duše mogla naci i kao "bonus" na live snimkama.
"Show Me The Place" kao kombinacija klavirsko/orguljaške minijature s gospel štihom i jecajucom violinom ima nešto od atmosfere Cashova oproštajnog sessiona, a cudesna "Darkness" -- koja ce zacijelo utjecati na neku buducu generaciju gothic-americana izvodaca -- mnogo od izvanvremenosti i emocionalnosti "korijenskog country-bluesa". Baš kao i fascinantna "Banjo".
Daleko od mirovine
"Anyhow" priziva atmosferu tridesetih i cetrdesetih kao kakav imaginarni zvucni zapis iz ekranizacija Chandlerovih junaka s Cohenom kao naratorom, "Crazy To Love You" je gotovo pa povratak na ishodište gitarskih "songs of love", a "Come Healing" novi savršen "suzivot" zenskih gospel-pop vokala (Dana Glover, Sharon Robinson, The Webb Sisters, odnosno Hattie i Charley Webb, te znana Jennifer Warnes) i Cohena.
Album zatvara "Different Sides" s izvrsnim meduigrama countryjem obojenog klavira i retro orguljama (koje vuku na Augieja Meyersa) te aranzmanom koji bi se sigurno svidio i Dylanu. "Ponekad se zaputim na cestu / star sam, ogledala ne lazu", veli Cohen u "Crazy To Love You" posezuci izravno ili usputno za temom starosti i odlaska u još nekoliko skladbi, no ako je suditi po snazi "starih ideja" u "novome ruhu", ni u 77. godini zivota nije pri kraju puta.
Jer -- za one koji vole citati recenzije od kraja, evo još jednom "velike istine" o novom Cohenovu albumu -- rijec je o senzacionalnom projektu uz bok najboljim ostvarenjima velikog Leonarda.
"Leonard Cohen Old Ideas"
Slobodna Dalmacija (Croatia) by Zlazko Gall, February 6, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
Just as he, who as a "late bloomer" musical career began only in the thirties, and I am in the case of Leonard Cohen had a late ignition. Well, like all "from the fifty-some", I lapped up the first "Suzanne," "Sisters Of Mercy," "So Long Marianne," "Bird on a Wire" and "Famous Blue Raincoat", was thrilled with the melancholy ballads Cohen's minimalist arrangements and distinctive narrative "gap".
Moreover, the film "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (better known as "the gambler and the harlot") not only because of a favorite director Robert Altman, but also because of Cohen's great musical participation, permanently put on the list of their own favorites. However, I admit, despite the great songs, which I layered texts, like many teens, "deciphered" only with the help of dictionaries, Cohen I soon began to go on my nerves. Partly because it has become something like "The rock" or "musical alibi" for nerds and pseudointelektualne caucus that these early seventies did not understand exactly rock and roll.
Golden years
To say the right, most loyal "cohenofila" consisted of a future student of comparative literature and the "elitists" who openly despised the already "late" Hendrix and Cream, a sensational albums that have appeared in the same season as the Cohen's "Songs Of Love And Hate" like "Who's Next" , "Led Zeppelin IV" or "Sticky Fingers" , held less valuable commodities of mass consumption. Cohen I actually rediscovered at the end of the seventies and early eighties.
Of course, profoundly aware not only of permanent actuality of his wondrous and suggestive melancholy ballads, but the massive impact that made on subsequent generations of singer-actors songwriterske (composer-singer) scene. No less no leaders gothic-Americana, and many other genre elusive figure raised the triangle izvanvremenih and absolutely sensational album, "Songs Of Leonard Cohen", "Songs From A Room" and "Songs Of Love And Hate."
Reasons for Cohen's return to the concert scene, 2009th, and recorded two great live album - "Love In London" (2009.) And a year later, "Live From The Road", a long time already knows everything. But no matter how skillfully the arrangments pretumbale old hit and one of the general impressive discography, and Cohen shone like - even communicative - a concert performer, the air was left hanging the question of whether the gentleman in the "golden years" and the author remains potent.
Without pathos
"Old Ideas" gave the right answer to the dilemma. Cohen, in fact, as the author of a new youth alive! Cohen's first studio album since "Dear Heather" in 2004. not just a collection of songs worthy of the reputation and career, the great Leonardo, but one of his best albums. Everything here is "the same". First, the compelling and unique "bronchitic" voice, which carries the melody and atmosphere "cohenovštine" which almost does not need any musical accompaniment. There are threads, but how it usually happens for Cohen, go to the heart of human existence.
Themes of love, broken relationships, suffering and hope, life and death, just as the religious reference points and parables... part of the "old" repertoire, but this time told with an almost unreal spirituality and emotionality. "Amen" is, say, a new "Hallelujah": a gentle bluesy song that should be, whether you are a stubborn atheist, agnostic or believer, appropriated as a personal prayer, and its chorus, with a gospel atmosphere, as well as real-pravcatu "mass love" .
Gently playing banjo and violin accents above gugutavih sporovoznog organ and lazy rhythms accented by stripes balloon drum, Cohen's vocals in a representative narrative murmuring with a microphone lying close to the mouth, which creates the impression that the Lord your God whispers the great love of the truth straight in the ear, is ethereal atmosphere and devastating tenderness. New great song on the list of Cohen's outrageously rich evergreen!
Without the pathos of the great truths dociranja for Cohen, who is also the "Old Ideas" uses beneficial effects of irony and black humor (evident in the verse about "lazy bastard in a suit" woven into the opening "Going Home"), just never wanted to be Pontiff's own cult. Album is not done "to breath", or the inspiration that has occurred or in the studio or the "creative fever" in isolation some of the exotic address.
Indeed, some of the songs - like "Amen" and "Lullaby", recorded in the other versions in 2007., While the "Darkness" before the current study performed by Cohen premieres and live concerts in more recent years of touring. The tour marked by brilliant arrangements by step according to the different genres is certainly identified and genre-stylistic territory of the new album.
Country, gospel, blues, jazzy hint that they are well-known luxurious female background vocals - as symbolic of "crash" earthly Cohen bronchial vocal "rasps" and onozemaljskih celestial harmonies - are in production and musical sense at all, "Old Ideas," a logical continuation of the study two records of previous concerts. She showed it at the beginning of melodious "Going Home" with very great female background vocals, which are safely able to find a "bonus" on the live recordings.
"Show Me The Place" as a combination of piano / organ miniatures with a gospel flair and sobbing violin has something of the atmosphere of Cash's farewell session, and the wonderful "Darkness" - which will certainly affect the future generation of a gothic-Americana artists - many of izvanvremenosti and emotional "Root of country-blues." Just as fascinating, "Banjo".
Far from retirement
"Anyhow," evokes the atmosphere of the thirties and forties as a kind of imaginary soundtrack from the film version of the Cohen Chandlerovih hero as narrator, "Crazy To Love You" is almost back to the origins of guitar "Songs of Love" and "Come Healing" new ideal "coexistence "gospel-pop female vocalists (Dana Glover, Sharon Robinson, the Webb Sisters, Hattie and Charley, and Webb, and Jennifer Warnes known) and Cohen.
Closes the album "Different Sides" with excellent color interpolations of country retro organ and piano (which dragged on Augie Meyers) and an arrangement which would be safe and loved Dylan. "Sometimes they went on the road / I'm old, mirrors do not lie," says Cohen in "Crazy To Love You" reaching directly or incidentally to the theme of age and going to a few songs, but judging by the strength of "old ideas" in "a new light," even in the 77th age is not the end times.
Because - for those who like to read reviews of the end, here's another "great truths" about the new Cohen album - it is a sensational project alongside the best works of the great Leonardo.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen / Old Ideas"
Masturbación Musical (Mexico) by Agustín Ortiz, February 6, 2012
Me enamora fácil: Disco de la Semana
Imaginemos por un momento que a fines del milenio pasado existía una estación de televisión llamada J-TV dedicada 100 por ciento a ese tan artístico como ancestralway of life judío. Ahora sigamos imaginando que, entre las paranoias apocalípticas de cambio de siglo y ese afan por ordenarlo todo, es medianoche y estás solo en casa viendo un especial sobre los 100 judíos mas influyentes de la cultura popular; sabes que el número uno será un empate entre la neurosis de Philip Roth y el nerviosismo de Woody Allen, pero el segundo aún está envuelto en un halo de misterio. Y en medo de la soledad de la pantalla surge un hombre; alto, canoso, melancólico. Sonríes, dejas escapar un suspiro y dices "Ah...claro...Leonard Cohen...", y a pesar de estar totalmente de acuerdo con la lista no puedes dejar de pensar un "pobre..."; quieres decir y saber todo lo que él dice y sabe, pero, ojo, jamás, jamás quisieras ser como él.
Porque pocas cosas más trágicas en la vida que ser Leonard Cohen. Ha de ser horrible haber sido un novelista prometedor, con talento (ahí están las magistrales El juego favorito y Beautiful Losers para demostrarlo) y tener que refugiarte en la música para poder comer. Ha de ser horrible ser el songwriter que menos vendió en el boom folkie de los 60 y 70 siendo sepultado en cuanto a popularidad por personas iguales a ti, que bien podían ser Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell o Stephen Stills. Ha de ser horrible haber haber estado con tantas mujeres tormentosas y sentirte culpable de que la mujer que inspiró tu mejor canción, Suzanne, viva hoy como una vagabunda. Ha de ser horrible tener una carrera irregular que parte desde la melancolía adulta de Songs of Leonard Cohen para seguir mutando como un Bowie anfetamínico en discos como el doo woop sardónico Death of a Ladies' Man (amado en secreto por todo punk que se precie de serlo y dueño de la canciòn mas bizarra de todas las de Cohen, Don't Go Home with your hard on, con Bob Dylan y Allen Ginsberg en los coros), el apocalipsis sombrío de I'm Your Man y el agridulce comentario social en The Future y que sólo te reconozcan como un folkie más.
Pero lo màs horrible de todo, la gran tragedia de Leonard Cohen, si le podemos llamar así, fue el hecho de tener que dejar tu tan amada reclusión budista y modales de Salinger en 2005 debido a que tu manager te estafa y te deja en bancarrota, iniciando el periodo mas triste y, al mismo tiempo, mas vital de Leonard Cohen: El trotamundos que toca su show sin fin de ciudad en ciudad ataviado con sombrero, traje y esa voz de Frank Sinatra de ultratumba que jamás deja de ser tan suya, pero que cuyas palabras son tan nuestras.
Y esto nos lleva al nuevo y flamante Old Ideas.
Así como hay películas "de viejos", también hay discos "de viejos"; subgénero patentado por Bob Dylan y su multi premiado Time out of mind en el cual el artista hace un recuento de sus pecados y anhelos desde una mortalidad que cada díaa va desapareciendo. Eso es Old Ideas, la carta de despedida de un artista siempre timido que decide mostrar las tinieblas de su corazón antes de desaparecer.
Si hubiera una palabra para definir el disco, ésta bien podría ser "adiós". Old Ideas arranca motores con la sensual y cadenciosa Going Homeescrita por Cohen y ese Svengali de Madonna que es Patrick Leonard. Lejos de quedar como una colaboración bizarra, resume perfectamente el espíritu del disco: uno de horas bajas, música intimista que suena como un "¿A que no sabes qué me pasó?", teñido de sombras que se empalma inmediatamente con la fantastica Amen, una recopilación de, precisamente, las old ideas de Cohen, de los temas recurrentes en su obra adaptados a slogans que se acercan mas a Silvia Plath que aBukowski; una canción embriagante, sí, pero a los sentidos y no a la garganta. A ésta se suma la canción terriblemente coheniana y floja que es Show me the place, una belleza, sí, pero una belleza a la que Cohennos ha acostumbrado. Después llega Darkness y no queremos que algo nos ilumine, sino sumergirnos ahí, junto a su autor, en esa oscuridad con un buen bourbon en la mano y despidiendonos de todo eso que alzcanzamos a ver y saber que nos sobrevivirá. Y al llegar a ese cierre susurrante que es Different Sides es cuando comprendemos que este disco no es "de viejo", sino sobre la vida desde la muerte. Y es por eso que Cohen no sélo me habla a mí en este disco, sino a todos.
Y nunca un regreso sabía tanto a despedida.
- Escúchalo si te gustan: Básicamente la buena música, pero si hemos de decir algunos nombres diríamos Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Joan Baez, Neil Young, por mencionar algunos y, además, la buena poesía.
"Leonard Cohen / Old Ideas"
Masturbación Musical (Mexico) by Agustín Ortiz, February 6, 2012
I love easy: Album of the Week
Imagine for a moment at the end of the last millennium there was a television station called J-TV dedicated 100 percent to that as artistic as ancestral way of life Jew. Now let us imagine that, among the apocalyptic paranoia turn of the century and the eagerness to sort it all, it's midnight and you're home alone watching a special on the 100 most influential Jewish popular culture, you know that number one is a tie between neurosis of Philip Roth and the nervousness of Woody Allen, but the second is still shrouded in mystery. And Mede of the loneliness of the screen there is a man, tall, gray, blue. You smile, you let out a sigh and say "Oh ... of course...Leonard Cohen...", and despite being fully agree with the list you can not stop thinking about a" poor..." you mean and know everything he says and knows But, eye, ever, ever want to be like him.
Because few things more tragic in life to be Leonard Cohen . It must be horrible to have been a promising novelist, talented (there are the master's favorite game and Beautiful Losers to prove it) and having to take refuge in music to eat. It must be horrible to be the songwriter that less sold on the folkie boom of the 60 and 70 and was buried in popularity by people just like you, who might well be Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell andStephen Stills. It must be awful to have so many women have been stormy and feel guilty that the woman who inspired your best song, Suzanne, live today as a vagabond. It must be awful to have a career irregular part from the adult melancholy Songs of Leonard Cohen to continue mutating as a Bowie albums amphetamine in the doo woopsardonic Death of a Ladies' Man (secretly loved by all self-respecting punk be and owner of the song most bizarre of all of Cohen, Do not Go Home with your hard on, with Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg on backing vocals), the bleak apocalypse I'm Your Man and the bittersweet social commentary in The Future and only recognize you as a folkiemore.
But the most horrible of all, the great tragedy of Leonard Cohen, if we can call it that, was having to leave your beloved Buddhist and modal confinement Salinger in 2005 because your manager lets you rip and bankruptcy, starting the saddest period and at the same time, most vital of Leonard Cohen: The Globetrotters playing his endless show from town to town dressed in hat, suit and the voice of Frank Sinatra from beyond the grave that never fails to be as his, but whose words are as ours.
And this brings us to the brand new Old Ideas.
Just as there are movies "old" discs are also "old" subgenre patented Bob Dylan and his multi award-winning Time Out of mind in which the artist recounts his sins and desires from each diaa mortality is disappearing. That's Old Ideas, the farewell letter from a shy artist who decides to always show the darkness of his heart before disappearing.
If there were one word to define the disk, it may well be "goodbye." Old ideas hitting the road with the sensual and rhythmic Going Home written by Cohen and the Svengali of Madonna is Patrick Leonard. Far from being a bizarre collaboration, summarizes perfectly the spirit of the album: one of low hours, intimate music that sounds like a "do not know what happened to me?" dyed shades that immediately connects with the fantastic Love, a collection of precisely those old thoughts Cohen, of the recurring themes in his work adapted for slogans that are closer to Sylvia Plath than Bukowski, an intoxicating song, yes, but to the senses, not the throat. To this was added the song terribly coheniana and loose that it is Show me the place, a beauty, yes, but a beauty that Cohen has accustomed us. Then comes Darkness and not something we want to enlighten us, but dive there by its author, in the dark with a good bourbon in his hand and saying goodbye to all that alzcanzamos to see and know that we will survive. And to reach that end whispering is Different Sides is when we realize that this album is not "old", but about life from death. And why not selo Cohen speaks to me on this album, but to everyone.
And I never knew so much a return to dismissal.
- Hear it if you like: Basically good music, but if we say that some names Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Joan Baez, Neil Young, to name a few and also good poetry.
"CD Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Rating: Music: 10 - Sound: 10 - Total: 10 / 10
"I love to speak with Leonard
He's a sportsman and a shepherd
He's a lazy bastard
Living in a suit
But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn't welcome
He just doesn't have the freedom
To refuse
He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he's really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube"
The opening self-deprecating yet wise lyrics ('Going Home') to LEONARD COHEN's 'Old Ideas', his new album in eight years, set the thematic tone that COHEN is going to be delving into with an understated passion. If you spend the time with the legend, Cohen is going to sing/speak and square up about life and issues with that ancient dude living upstairs above our souls. Though thus spiritual in nature these dialoguesque monologues offer a window to an astute, seasoned and experienced understanding of life and its travails, love, loss, wreckage and reflections on the ultimate exit. These are beautiful and evocative elegiac contemplations -reckonings at the autumn of one's life pending
"Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it's better
Than before
Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore"
Musically you will hear minimalistic compositions in a spirit of what COHEN refers to as "European cabaret" though in many places it's quintessentially American (especially 'Lullaby' where the harmonica gives it a distinct feel of the vast spaces and of American folk and country music). You will encounter mostly quiet piano, strings, trumpet, organ, lingering guitars, soft backing vocals with wonderfully textured female voices, which together with the spiritual themes sometimes lend the music a gospel kind of atmosphere, there is also a waft of blues. All of the elements conjure up mood which is very laidback and soothing and together with COHEN's honey textured baritone it's a balm or a best whiskey for a weathered and life-battered being/soul. And after all, you can round it up with a remedial spirit of 'Come Healing', the song some hail as a successor to 'Hallelujah' and though it's a wonderful song, I doubt it can match it in scope of emotion - it's much softer and less intense, not to mention the hook is not as memorable as in that COHEN's classic song.
"And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb
Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace
O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
O, see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart"
In fact, this album is not concerned with what is and is not a "hit", songs to be picked out into the future "Best of" releases, it's a deeply personal album that offers to each and every listener a journey where one is bound to find the song or songs that spoke to them the most according to their own taste, depth and experience. The one that quickly grew into my fondness is 'Darkness'
"I caught the darkness
It was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
Drinking from your cup
I said, 'Is this contagious?'
You said, 'Just drink it up.'"
It has a wonderful rhythm, blues feel; it's also a song where you might see yourself engulfed in some old smoky joint back in time, reflecting in solitude or silent company. Poetry-wise it's maybe reminiscent of the best of Bukowski. Of course some of COHEN's vocal delves into spoken word to make this as (unpretentiously) poetic as it can be. The following 'Anyhow' is transported by spoken word as if a bridge between the two songs. It's a very deep song about the ravages of love with some fittingly heavy piano parts. It is simultaneously hardest but also the most cathartic listen in its honesty, insight and the request for forgiveness/ mercy/ salvation for past wounds albeit with no expectation of it, the no-hope of this gives it a more real feel and earths the song to the fleshy roots of a heart rather than into some airy fairy ending. Though 'Crazy To Love You' is still theme-heavy the tone lightens up. So which one will speak to you the most is up to you...
You may ask why I've included so many lyrics into the review, but LEONARD COHEN is not just a song-writer and singer, but also a poet and with the minimalistic touch regarding music here his message and words are prominent and the centrepiece of the album. The production really serves and taps intuitively into what COHEN tried to achieve with his 'Old Ideas'.
For those who will be wanting to have the deluxe editions there is also a treat of COHEN's own sketch presented as a numbered lithograph. Whether you will be getting that edition or the 'plain' one, it's a sure must have - not only because COHEN is such a seminal influence on so much of music out there, but because as an album it's a sure treasure.
"Leonard Cohen: 'Old Ideas'"
It's a wonderful thing when artists you love surprise you with just how good they can still be, and that's exactly how I felt upon first hearing Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas. Like many Cohen fans, I adore the songwriter's early work but have a hard time getting into his records from the 1980s on because of their glossy production. I was slightly afraid that Old Ideas would fall into the latter category, but instead the record is an understated delight, full of extremely well recorded minimal arrangements. This makes the record closer in aesthetic to classic Cohen while subtly pulling the songwriter's sound in all sorts of infectious new directions. There's a true joy in hearing Cohen completely solo again on "Crazy to Love You," but there's just as much of a thrill in hearing the songwriter stretch his limits by getting funky on tracks like the downright sexy "Different Sides" (keep in mind: this is Cohen's funk, so it's danceable but still heartbreaking). Most importantly, all these production techniques suit the man's lyrics, which are spiritual but still lined with his sardonic darkness. Old Ideas is a refreshing album from one of the all-time best.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
Spectrum Culture by Jacob Adams, February 1, 2012
Rating: 3.75/5
Only a handful of artists are courageous enough to write a song referring to themselves in the third person from the perspective of God. Leonard Cohen, a veteran poet and singer-songwriter if ever there was one, gets away with it. It helps that "Going Home," the opening track from Old Ideas, Cohen's 12th studio release and his first LP since 2004, is noticeably self-deprecating. "I love to speak with Leonard," Cohen croaks. "He's a sportsman and a shepherd/ He's a lazy bastard living in a suit." Apparently the Almighty gives Cohen dictation in a similar manner as Scottish novelist Muriel Spark once claimed. Our speaker states proudly that Leonard "does say what I tell him." Thankfully, he's aware of how small he is in the grand scheme of things, since he "knows he's really nothing/ But the brief elaboration of a tube."
How you respond to these lines from "Going Home" is a good indication of whether or not you will buy into Old Ideas. If you find the combination of pathos, personal spirituality and humorous humility intriguing, you'll probably dig this record. If you find it a little cheesy and overly self-conscious, you might want to stick with the many culturally ubiquitous versions of Cohen's "Hallelujah."
Personally, I can't help but have great respect for Cohen's artistic vision, one that has remained remarkably consistent for more than 40 years. As the record's title suggests, there's nothing particularly novel about this release when compared with the artist's previous works. He's still touching on the same themes of relationships, Judeo-Buddhist theology and sexuality that he did on his 1967 debut Songs of Leonard Cohen. At age 77, I don't really demand that Cohen break new ground. I'm content to hear him tell some of the same stories again and again. They're just that good, especially when they're delivered in that raspy, grandfatherly tone.
At least four of the "stories" are masterpieces that demand to be ranked with such Cohen classics as "Suzanne" and "Joan of Arc." The above-mentioned "Going Home" is poetically adventurous and musically potent. On the jazz-laced "Anyhow," a desperate ex-lover bellows, "I know you have to hate me/ But could you hate me less?" "Crazy to Love You" puts the full power of Cohen's songwriting chops on display, since the tune features just the singer's voice and acoustic guitar. "Darkness" is a bona fide blues number, with the repeated melancholy assertion, "I caught the darkness, baby/ And I caught it worse than you."
As much as I connect with the songwriting on Old Ideas, I'm a bit disappointed by some of the production choices. Several tracks feature string and wind sounds played on a keyboard rather than the authentic instruments. We have a synthy violin on "Going Home" and a digitalized trombone on "Anyhow," for instance. I understand that Cohen has been developing a distinctive "European-folk, cabaret" texture lately. Perhaps the digital instruments are a deliberate artistic choice to invoke a spirit of theatricality. Nevertheless, these electronic artifices distract me from Cohen's organic, authentic voice.
These sonic sins are quickly forgiven in the face of the songwriter's relentless grace and wit. I'm not sure that you have to be familiar with the artist's earlier work to "get" these songs, though it probably helps you appreciate them all the more. There are very few careers like Cohen's in the annals of modern music. His trek from Canadian poet to treasured singer-songwriter is exceptionally inspirational. His ideas may be old, but I get the sense that he has much more to tell us.
"Still Alive and Well: Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas"
Critics at Large by Laura Warner, February 1, 2012
One warm evening in the spring of 2008, I filed into the Sony Centre in downtown Toronto where you could feel in this company of strangers a communal certainty that what we were about to witness was something captivating. Moments later, garbed in a grey suit and fedora, a Canadian legend took the stage. The applause only ceased when the opening chords of "Dance Me To The End of Love" wafted over us. So began our intimate three-hour encounter with the Canadian icon Leonard Cohen. Like many of his recordings, the performance was simple but urbane; humble but iconic; mournful but beautiful; thus making each detail unforgettable.
Several years after that epic world tour, in his 77th year, Cohen returned to the studio. The result is Old Ideas (Sony Music Canada., 2012) the twelfth studio album in his 44 year career and the first since Dear Heather in 2004. Living off of the vivid memory of that evening almost four years ago, the announcement of Old Ideas was a warm welcome. The album itself proof that Cohen's artistic crux is still aglow in his twilight years. A Montreal native, Cohen was a published poet before his twentieth birthday. His poetic and literary accomplishments, which also include two novels that capture the quintessential melancholy of CanLit, might have established his foundation, but it is through song, however, that he became immortalized.
One of Cohen's greatest strengths has been his ability to articulate the most indescribable micro-emotions, those fleeting feelings that can only be diagnosed during our most intimate contemplations of spiritualism, mortality, and sex. In Old Ideas, these motifs are still present, but they have further matured and been reshaped. The essence of his familiar themes of religion, loss, failure, and life however remain. Devoted followers will instantly hear their familiar professor from the opening lines of the first track, "Going Home": "I'd love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a Shepard / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit."
Songs like "Show Me The Place" and "Crazy to Love" can still fill you with a special delight as he allows himself to be tortured by those deeper longings brought on by regret. (It also confirms that, in those areas, there's no hope for the rest of us.) A specialist in failed romance, Cohen chronicles how crazy we have to be to fall in love: "Had to go crazy to love you / Had to let everything fall / Had to be people I hated / Had to be no one at all." With those profound statements --"Crazy has places to hide / That are deeper than any goodbye" -- the songwriter reminds his listeners of every heartache past.
While Cohen has confirmed numerous times through interviews and on stage that old age has cured his depression, the souvenir regret and missed opportunities is still evident in the work. Remorse and isolation still weave through the tapestry of the rhythmic single "The Darkness." The references to solitude make the album reminiscent to his 2001 collaboration with Sharon Robinson, Ten New Songs. The sound of the album stays true to form. The elements of jazz, gospel, folk, and Americana alternate throughout Old Ideas. Cohen's growling baritone delivers the lines with more conviction than any melodious cover artist ever could. The grittiness is eloquently accented with angelic hums from his female backing singers and the subtlety of the arrangements.
Leonard Cohen is undoubtedly one tough act to follow. It's nearly impossible to rival the rawness heard in "I'm Your Man"; to reach the poignancy of "Who By Fire" or "Anthem"; to duplicate the cynicism of "The Future"; to summon the anguish in "Famous Blue Raincoat" or "Coming Back to You." Old Ideas presents an even more somber and cultivated Cohen. Rooted in his mastery and liberated by emotion, Leonard Cohen has still got it.
"Cohen gets better with age in 'Old Ideas'"
The Crimson White (University of Alabama) by Jefferson Fabian, February 8, 2012
I shudder to think about what I could possibly be doing when I'm 78-years-old or even if I'll live to be that old at all. Call me cynical, but rarely do my thoughts bring up the image of a rich, wise and healthy elderly man playing out the last of his days, sharing his years of time-tested wisdom with the younger generations and enjoying the fruits of his lifelong labors in retirement.
Instead, the number "78" brings to mind a delusional, broke, ailing coot whose day-to-day existence is spent yammering about the good old days, the president being terrible and the terrorists invading his house, as his nurses feed him apple sauce and prune juice through an IV. Frankly, I don't have high hopes for myself in old age. If I'm anything short of a raving, decrepit lunatic, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Leonard Cohen, on the other hand, has proved he ages like that ideal first example I gave, or rather like fine wine. At the tender age of 78, Cohen is not only still producing music, but it's new, original, and most importantly, excellent.
Last week's release of "Old Ideas" marks the 11th studio album Cohen has written and recorded since his 1967 debut, and he's not a cent less of an artist than he was over 40 years ago. With each song on this album, Cohen proves he's still the songwriting legend that crafted "Hallelujah" in the early 80s.
The album's title is reflective of Cohen's songwriting style on the album. Nothing really varies stylistically from what he's done in the past. It's more or less the same brand of chamber folk and pop he's always stuck to playing. Thankfully, however, that's indicative of top-notch quality.
Lyrically, it doesn't disappoint. "I love to speak with Leonard. He's a sportsman and a shepherd, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit," Cohen sings in the opening lines of the album, quickly revealing his signature sarcasm and wit. Each line is masterfully crafted with the care and precision with which he's treated all of his classics.
The instrumentation and songwriting themselves are fairly typical of Cohen as well. He covers the spectrum of cabaret-tinged, teary-eyed folk ballads and more upbeat blues rock numbers, most of which merely serve as a backdrop to his exquisite poetry.
Perhaps the only immediately noticeable change in the elements of Cohen's music is his voice, which started out as a much higher monotone and has since been chiseled into the gravelly, smoky, Tom Waits-like rasp that it is today.
As a whole, "Old Ideas" is certainly much more than its title suggests. While the style hasn't changed much, the quality remains unparalleled in the songwriting world. The ideas may be old, but they're built on the rock-solid foundation that Leonard Cohen spent the last four decades assembling.
If someone else had recorded this album, it'd be regarded as a benchmark for modern songwriting. With Cohen, it's just more of the same.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas - album review"
* * * * * (5 stars)
Sometimes, crime pays. Old Ideas, Leonard Cohen's first album in eight years, would never have existed if his accountant hadn't pilfered money from him, forcing Cohen out of self-imposed exile and retirement in a Zen monastery.
Leonard's loss is our gain.
You know what you're going to get with a Leonard Cohen album - melancholic existential contemplation - and Old Ideas is no different. This is not a complaint.
But it's a stroke of quiet genius for Old Ideas' opening gambit Going Home to have Cohen (or is it God?) dub "Leonard" a "lazy bastard in a suit". It draws listeners in with nice dash of laughing Len's self-deprecating humour.
Cohen is now 77 years old so it's hardly surprising that Old Ideas is mostly preoccupied with mortality. Sparse, but never leaden, arrangements allow the words to shine. And Cohen has always been about the words.
Darkness sheds light on his state of mind: "I've got no future/I know my days are few/The present's not that pleasant/Just a lot of things to do". Amen sees Cohen seek reassurance from a lover to "tell me again" that he's needed "when the angels are panting and scratching at the door".
It's not a set of songs for parties then but its lighter moments - most notably Going Home and the closing Different Sides (wherein Cohen complains to another lover "You want to change the way I make love but I want to leave it alone" - he's 77, after all!) - make its darker aspects palatable and - when in the right (wrong?) frame of mind - rather cathartic.
Hallelujah.
earworms: Going Home, Amen, The Darkness, Lullaby, Different Sides
"Leonard Cohen - OLD IDEAS"
The Quietus by Luke Turner, February 8, 2012
"Laughing" Len. Music to cut your wrists to. The suicide songbook. Many are the misconceptions that have been put against the music of Leonard Cohen over the years, keeping him as a strange kind of musical curio since he first emerged as a writer who couldn't sing on 1967's Songs Of Leonard Cohen. The canon has always wanted its members to deal in dreams and whimsy, to be unattainable, ludicrous idols and thus easily mythologised. This poet who made something sublime from all the little cracks of our every day human frailties never quite fitted in.
Cohen was always a musical outsider, and the guitar on his early worked clattered with an amateur's enthusiasm. This is something many of his imitators, or lesser singer songwriters forget as they fret about craft or folk authenticity. Ignore the faithful acoustic guitar covers of his songs: it's in the unusual ones, from Nick Cave's scream-from-hell take on 'Avalanche' to the X Factor 'Hallelujah', that you'll find the key to understanding that Cohen's music is there to pay service to his words. This became all the more evident as time went on. No wonder Death Of A Ladies Man, the infamous collaboration with Phil Spector, didn't work out. On the other hand, though, the brusquely arranged synthesisers on I'm Your Man and The Future gave gravitas to the apocalyptic lyrical themes. As Cohen's voice deepened through the 80s, it never drowned.
His music is mercurial and personal, dancing away from genre and classicism. You can be a cult artist and have a million adherents to whom you are personal, elemental. This is what Leonard Cohen always was, and it was as that person that he disappeared up Mount Baldy to retreat into retirement. As is now widely told, while up there his manager both ran off with his money and left him bankrupt, forcing a return to music. As he sings here on 'Darkness'. "I got no future / I know my days are few / the present's not that pleasant / just a lot of things to do / I thought the past would last me / but the darkness got that too". A note on a hand drawn self portrait projected as this track played at a listening event for Old Ideas read "the grim days of summer 2007".
Nevertheless, that world tour, begun out of financial necessity, put the lead back in Len's pencil and had, he says, an "invigorating effect", that meant that after the touring obligations were done with he wanted to carry on. This record is the result. Although Cohen is commendably vague when questioned about his work, it's not hard to surmise that the unexpectedness of his return to music, and perhaps pleasant surprise at how well it worked out, seems to shape much of Old Ideas.
It begins with one of the best opening lines committed to tape in recent times: "I'd love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard / Living in a suit". It's at once witty and self-deprecating, smooth and wry, skewering the mythos of the artist. "He will speak these words of wisdom / Like a sage, a man of vision / Though he knows he's really nothing / But the brief elaboration of a tube."
Old Ideas excels in "brief elaboration", arranging its generous instrumentation with eloquence and simplicity, reflecting the grace of the man himself. It veers between the Tom Waits bar footstep of 'Amen', which also has a strange slowed-down take on the pace of 'I'm Your Man', and the blue collar rock and organ-laden swirl in 'Darkness'.
But whatever is going on the music, from the aforementioned to twanging guitar, harmonica, pleasant string fills, the trademark backing vocals or a lonely, Mediterranean night violin on 'Show Me The Place', everything revolves around his voice. 'Crazy To Love You' is the biggest link to the past, with simple acoustic guitar as Cohen neatly sums up the fruitless, empty quest of the male libido that he has explored for decades in words and in song: "I chased through the souvenir heartache / her braids and her blouse all undone". In the past Cohen hasn't been a man for the piano, but it's used to great effect throughout here. The low notes are perfect foil for his quiet passion, this hiss as his voice cracks as Cohen takes up his burden of song: "show me the place where you want the slave to go." In 'Come Healing' he displays a satisfying refusal to adhere to the unfair demands of structure, scattering "none of us deserrrrrvin' the cruelty of her grace" loosely across more tightly timed backing vocals.
In some ways Old Ideas is the most musically considered Leonard Cohen album yet, and perhaps the first that sounds like the kind of thing you'd expect from an old master of the 1960s and 70s. Yet Old Ideas' musical strength lies in its restraint, perhaps indicative of its creator being, by and large, a non-musician. Though Old Ideas is album of accessible, classicist music that gets him to the top of the charts (kept off No.1 only by Lana Del Rey), to the front pages of the monthly magazines, to the screens and airwaves of the BBC, from Jarvis Cocker to Radio 4, he knows exactly when to turn it down so that every rattle and crack in his voice can be heard. Leonard Cohen's music is to his voice what that excellent suit and fedora is to his body: in service to the core of his words: love, redemption, hate, the nature of poetry, spiritual quest, betrayal, loss, desire, pain, seduction, destiny. Yes, these are old ideas. But this old man gives them a new resonance, and by his words that are carried through these songs, they will endure forever.
"ALBUM REVIEW: Leonard Cohen - 'Old Ideas'"
Let's get this out of the way right up front:
Leonard Cohen could sing the text from a Dairy Queen menu and it would sound like something written by a prophet who spends his life trudging up a mountain, battling who knows what along the way, then spends innumerable years waiting on God who eventually reveals himself and has a face to face dialog with the sage who then descends the mountain, much wiser and wearier to try and relate his experience to all of us commoners, living in oblivion by keeping ourselves busy with completely mundane and unimportant things.
I saw Leonard Cohen live in 2009. I've said many times that I can only describe the experience as, "Biblical". It truly was like I was sitting at the foot of that wise old sage. My wife was with me, but had never heard of Cohen or any of his music before that night. She first asked if he was lip-syncing. Within a few minutes, when you could tell that she realized that she was in fact hearing Cohen's voice - one of the most unique and divisive in all of recorded music - she said, "He's kind of dramatic. A little goofy." She wasn't sure about his melodramatic gestures, his falling to one knee repeatedly, and his "if anybody else said this stuff, it would sound unbearably over the top" stage banter. Another song or two later, "Is he gay?" No, my dear, he most assuredly is not. Another song, "Wow...he's kinda sexy. His vibe is kinda hot. Even for an old guy." Once we had addressed all of those concerns, she settled in for the rest of the three-hour show and by the end, just like me and everyone else in the room, her jaw hung wide open in the realization that we had witnessed something very special.
And, let's be honest...Isn't that pretty close to a summation of all of our experiences with Leonard Cohen? He sings about love and God, life and struggles. His songs are dark, lovely, spiritual, sexy, and often very funny. His music is different. It takes a while to warm up to it. Then, just when you get used to the early, folky stuff, he introduces an electric keyboard and makes an album that kind of sounds like the soundtrack to the night-time scenes on Miami Vice.
He's got that Tom Waits quality; you love him or you hate him. Even those who hate him, though, can easily recognize the genius of his songs. We've all heard some young or old, experienced or inexperienced artist or band try to take on Cohen's classic "Halleluha" - the butchering of that modern-day standard is practically a rite of passage for anyone who claims to be a singer of any stripe.
Largely, his recordings have failed to properly capture his magic. They've been under-produced, over-produced, or just plain poorly produced. He's relied too heavily on his Casio keyboard. And there's that voice. That voice. Lower than low. Gruffer than Tom Waits and Cookie Monster at times. Harder to listen to than Dylan at his best or Kristofferson at his worst.
But, these limitations are in some sense what makes Cohen's music so special. He once told Judy Collins, who had a hit with her cover of Cohen's classic, "Suzanne", as he pitched her the song, "I can't sing and I can't play guitar and I don't know if this is a song." She assured him there was a song there and she recorded it the next day. (Notice there was no arguing with his claims over singing or playing the guitar...wink-wink).
New listeners don't typically just listen to Leonard Cohen once and fall in love. It takes work. He has to grow on you. He has to work his magic. You have to kind of figure him out.
That was before, though.
Before his "people" embezzled all of his money and he declared bankruptcy. Before he embarked on a massive multi-year world tour to generate enough of a nest egg that he could live on again. Before all of this somehow turned him into a jovial old man who enjoyed the spotlight again.
We used to have to go a long time without hearing anything from Leonard Cohen. He seemed to like it that way. He'd go ten years between albums. It was almost like he spent as much time as he could accumulating pain and worldly experience before finally expelling them in one document of a few songs and retreating again.
He used to retreat to remote places in the Mediterranean between albums and tours. Sometimes he retreated to Buddhist monasteries.
Leonard Cohen is not like artists you know. When I think of Cohen, I always think of one picture I saw of him. He's in a wide open room in a structure made almost entirely of stone with open windows. The only furniture in the room is a bed, a wooden chair, and a small table/desk. The location appears to be somewhere like Italy or Greece. There's a vintage European-looking guitar leaned against the unmade bed, which is dressed in perfectly white linens. Cohen, dressed in white pants and a thin, mostly-open linen shirt, is unshaven, tired looking, and barefoot, sitting at the desk, typing. At the far end of the room a beautiful dark-haired woman sits, completely naked, on the chair, staring intently at Cohen as he labors; inspiring him. She is obviously his muse. At least for that phase of his life. For that album. That song.
Other artists fabricate scenes that look like that. When you watch movies that try to be "artsy", this is the kind of scene you see. Except, this scene is real. This is how Leonard Cohen lives. Or did for a long time, anyway.
Now he lives in a house in L.A. He recorded his new album, "Old Ideas" above the garage of that house. Much less romantic, no?
But it works. All of the recent activity - the constant touring, the live albums (two in three years), the reissuing of live performances from the 60's - have energized Cohen. He's said that the activity led to a creative burst of writing on the tour, which led quickly to the recording of the new album. He's even talking about touring again, to support "Old Ideas".
And while the results couldn't be called "joyful", there is some level of joy in this record; more apparent than in anything else he's done. A friend of mine who never could quite get into the music of Leonard Cohen recently listened to "Old Ideas" and told me this might be the one Cohen album he could actually appreciate.
It's easier to listen to.
It's still Cohen. It's raw and honest. It's sad and funny.
It reminds me of Tom Waits' latest album, "Bad As Me"; it takes what the artist does best, refines it a little, tightens it up and presents it in an almost flawless, concise package.
On the opening song, "Going Home", Leonard takes the voice of God, requesting an audience with Leonard Cohen, whom he refers to as "a lazy bastard living in a suit".
The next track, "Amen", sounds to me like a latter-day follow-up to "Hallelujah". It's more playful than somber; more confident than worshipful. It's a love note from a more confident, playful older man as compared to one from his overly-earnest younger self.
One of my favorite songs on the album, the first single, "Show Me the Place", sounds to me like a sequel to Cohen's classic ,"If It Be Your Will". Cohen wrote "If It Be Your Will" as a prayer during a time when he couldn't find his voice. On "Show Me the Place", Cohen sounds, again, like a more confident and secure older man. Where "If It Be Your Will" was a heartfelt and blind pledge in an unknowing time, "Show Me the Place", is a continuation of that pledge. But this time the artist knows more. He's stayed the course and is confident in his muse and himself. He knows God - or whomever he's speaking to - will ultimately take care of him. He's secure in his choice and commitment. He's not scared, but he knows the race isn't completely run. He's resigned himself to complete the task, whatever it takes.
"Come Healing" is unexpectedly uplifting and a very strong contender for the most beautiful song I've ever heard.
I could go on and on, but I'm not a fan of track-by-track commentaries. Suffice it to say that Cohen's "Old Ideas" sound familiar and yet completely new. He's reinvigorated. The instrumentation is minimal - and, maybe for the first time, not over or under-produced. There is some blues here, even some country. The Casio is still here, too.
Cohen's longtime collaborator Sharon Robinson lends her beautiful voice to great effect. When Cohen was on tour recently, he introduced his newest collaborators every evening as "the sublime Webb Sisters". They're present on this record and they are just that; sublime.
Leonard Cohen isn't like people you know. He's not like artists you know of. He's unique. He's special. He's on a different plane than you and me. Yet he sings of things universal and instantly identifiable.
This is a fine work from a true "Tower of Song".
Here's hoping the newly reinvigorated master still has a few more "Old Ideas" left in him.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Crítica: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Na Mira Do Groove (Brazil) by Tiago Ferreira, February 7, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
Emoções à parte (e elas são muitas) o retorno triunfal do bardo canadense é fortificado por aquilo que ele mais gosta de fazer: poesia
Foi preciso uma derrocada milionária na conta de Leonard Cohen para que ele pudesse voltar à ativa com tudo: no final de 2005, o músico teve um contratempo sério com a manager Kelley Lynch, que fez um rombo em sua conta. Dos US$ 5 milhões de seu fundo de aposentadoria, restou US$ 150 mil.
Daí, foi preciso agendar novas turnês e se apresentar novamente ao público. Entre 2008 e 2010, fez um total de 247 shows (cada um com cerca de 3h de duração) e chegou a compor na estrada mesmo algumas das canções de Old Ideas.
Se Leonard Cohen conseguirá juntar o montante milionário mais uma vez, fica difícil prever. Mas, na pior das hipóteses, o embargo foi essencial para que o bardo gravasse um de seus melhores discos.
O título é praticamente óbvio: não espere nada de novo do compositor e poeta canadense de 77 anos de idade. Pelo menos, nenhuma ruptura estética.
As composições intimistas beiram temas que vão da aparente falta de beleza - irônica, quase divertida ("Sou velho/E os espelhos não mentem", canta em "Crazy to Love You") - à resignação perante a proximidade da morte, como ele canta em "Darkness": "Não tenho futuro/Sei que meus dias são curtos".
Ainda que os temas pudessem fazer parte do sermão de nossos avós, Leonard Cohen é o poeta-mor da música pop. Não porque Jeff Buckley, Bill Calaham e Bradford Cox interpretaram alguns de seus maiores clássicos, mas porque a profundidade de sua poesia tem o poder de infiltrar em qualquer ouvinte que preste atenção nas composições.
Sua voz pode não ser a mais qualificada, mas é a melhor para soltar aquilo que ele tem para dizer: seja em terceira pessoa ao falar que "não é nada, apenas uma breve elaboração" em "Going Home", ou na objetiva "Show Me the Place": "Me mostre o lugar/Onde começa o sofrimento".
A obscuridade do som de Leonard Cohen, mais uma vez, é interpolada pelos violões, pianos e vozes femininas ao fundo. Em "Darkness", a síncope soa quase diabólica, apresentando o fim como algo inevitável já previsto por todos nós. Mesmo para ele, que "não fuma nenhum cigarro e não bebe álcool/(...)Não tenho gosto por mais nada".
Todas as 10 canções têm um quê de algo clássico. Você pode não ser religioso, mas vai ficar embebecido com o verso "Conte-me novamente que você sabe o que estou pensando/A vingança pertence aos chatos". "Come Healing", com a introdução com vocais femininos, tem um ar messiânico, quase gospel. E, levada em uma construção poética blueseira, "Banjo" é permeada por uma voz country que, sem disparates, lembra Johnny Cash.
E o que dizer de "Different Sides", então? A canção que encerra Old Ideas reflete, em dois versos, como pode ter início o desequilíbrio amoroso - ou mesmo como ele pode dar certo em outros relacionamentos: "Eu digo que você não deve, não poderia, não pode/Você diz que deve, e vai lá e faz" - e ele, claro, aceita. Esse capítulo na biografia de Leonard Cohen já é conhecido.
Velhas ideias em tempos novos, sem soar nostálgico, é quase uma façanha. Aqui, o que conta é a força da poesia - e Leonard Cohen é um dos grandes mestres dessa arte.
"Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Na Mira Do Groove (Brazil) by Tiago Ferreira, February 7, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
Emotions aside (and they are many) the triumphant return of Canadian bard is fortified by what he most likes to do: poetry
It took a million dollar collapse of Leonard Cohen's account so he could return to action with everything: the end of 2005, the musician had a serious setback with the manager Kelley Lynch, who made a hole in your account. Of the $5 million of his retirement fund, there remained $150 thousand.
Hence, we need new touring schedule and resubmit to the public. Between 2008 and 2010, made a total of 247 shows (each about 3 hours long) and even write on the road even some of the songs of Old Ideas.
If Leonard Cohen will be able to add the amount millionaire again, it is difficult to predict. But, at worst, the embargo was essential for the bard to record one of his best albums.
The title is almost obvious: do not expect anything new Canadian poet and the composer of 77 years of age. At least breakage aesthetics.
The intimate compositions border on topics ranging from the apparent lack of beauty - ironic, almost amusing ("I'm old / And the mirrors do not lie," he sings on "Crazy to Love You") - the resignation to the proximity of death, as he sings in "Darkness" "I have no future / I know my days are short."
Although the subjects could be part of the sermon of our grandparents, the poet Leonard Cohen is chief pop music. Not because Jeff Buckley, Bill Bradford Cox Calaham and interpreted some of his greatest classics, but because the depth of his poetry has the power to infiltrate any listener to pay attention to the compositions.
His voice may not be the most qualified, but the best is to release what he has to say, is in third person by saying that "nothing, just a brief elaboration" in "Going Home," or seek "Show Me the Place" : "Show me the place / Where the suffering begins."
The dark sound of Leonard Cohen, once again, is interpolated by guitars, pianos and female voices in the background. In "Darkness," the syncopation sounds almost diabolical, with the end already foreseen as inevitable for us all. Even for him, that "there is no cigarette smoke and not drink alcohol / (...) I have no taste for anything else."
All 10 songs have a hint of something classic. You may not be religious, but will be embebecido with the line "Tell me again that you know what I'm thinking / Vengeance belongs to the flat." "Come Healing", with the introduction with female vocals, has a messianic air, almost gospel.And, taken on a bluesy poetic construction, "Banjo" is permeated by a voice that country, no nonsense, remember Johnny Cash.
And what about "Different Sides" then? The song that closes Old Ideas reflected in two verses, as the imbalance may start loving - or even how it can work in other relationships: "I say you should not, could not, can not / You say you should and go and do" - and he of course accepted. This chapter in the biography of Leonard Cohen is already known.
Old ideas in new times, without sounding nostalgic, it's almost an achievement. Here, what counts is the power of poetry - and Leonard Cohen is one of the great masters of this art.
"Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas'"
It dawns like an early morning sunrise, with chorus, piano and strings drawing a pastoral scene. Punctuated by organ chords and soft percussive flourishes, the introduction is somberly recited by a man who is both observer and observed. I was laughing and in tears at the first song. But that's about right, isn't it? This is Leonard Cohen.
For "Old Ideas," Cohen's first new album since 2004 (studio album #12), the production is clean, crisp and sparse, with sharp focus on the vocals and lyrical content. The instrumentation is gorgeous and masterful, both in its placement and its execution. Classical and flamenco-style acoustic guitar, banjo, piano, organ, violin, soft percussion, muted trumpet, harmonica - all drift in and out in a beautifully choreographed ballet, making subtle, tasteful and delightful appearances.
A Best of 2012 Album Nominee - "Going Home" is sweetly sentimental and hilarious. It's a poem to Leonard from God, and quite a succinct appraisal it is of Cohen's life work and raison d'être. It's poignant self-observation under a strongly powered microscope ("I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit... He will speak these words of wisdom / like a sage, a man of vision / though he knows he's really nothing / but the brief elaboration of a tube.").
It's something in the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane. Or perhaps it's the profanity of the search for enlightenment, the sacredness of sexual longing. There's something in Leonard Cohen's work that is so simple, honest, and matter-of-fact, yet so instantly hard-hitting, that his words come as a surprising revelation, like something familiar that you stumble upon after years of it being misplaced.
Permeating it all, always, is that constant reminder of our inevitable mortality. Is it that the clock is ticking, so we'd better make it good (and fast), or is it the promise of an end to our suffering? Both. ("Going home without my sorrow / going home sometime tomorrow / going home to where it's better than before // Going home without my burden / going home behind the curtain / going home without the costume that I wore").
Accompaniment - Giving sanctification with their choral harmonies are Leonard's celestial angels - Dana Glover, Sharon Robinson, The Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley Webb), and Jennifer Warnes. They help to elevate this discourse on Cohen's search for redemption and grace and at the same time, serve as a really cool house band.
Throughout the album, the musical and vocal accompaniment perfectly complements Leonard's poetry like a woven tapestry. Whether it's the understated classical piano, strings and serene harmonies of "Going Home," the softly shuffling Spanish-flavored "Amen," the slinky honky-tonk blues of "Darkness," or the old-timey folk of "Banjo," it's always perfect.
There are so many "gems" here - think of this album as one honkin' huge medallion gaudily stuffed full of them. "Banjo" is a sweet little old-timey gospel piece about a busted instrument washing up on the waves, providing some great imagery ("There's something that I'm watching / means a lot to me / it's a broken banjo bopping on a dark infested sea"). The soothing balm of "Lullaby," with its gently caressing vocals, guitar and muted trumpet, is followed by one final song, and here is the one singular problem I have with this album. Though realizing how painstakingly crafted this masterpiece is, I'm sure it's intentional.
"Different Sides" is an unsettling end. It's a story of irreconcilable differences, a relationship unable to find common ground ("We find ourselves on different sides / Of a line nobody drew"). What? No sagely insight? No resolution? It feels like unfinished business.
But maybe that's just the point. There is always unfinished business. "Old Ideas" is a hushed prayer awash in daily concerns. It is a conversation with god, a nod to the ever-present fact of mortality, and to the ever-present temptations and pitfalls of life and love.
Old Ideas With New Friends
VIDEO SERIES - To celebrate Leonard Cohen's 40th Anniversary in music and the release of "Old Ideas," several artists such as Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Cults, Cold War Kids and A.C. Newman (New Pornographers) have each recorded a cover of their favorite Leonard Cohen song. [editor's note: What an amazing concept. Leonard Cohen albums are so good they come with their own sidecars of media loaded with talent! RS]
"Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Rocksucker by Nick Cole-Hamilton, February 9, 2012
After the abysmal Between Two Worlds Sony advertisement in which Leonard Cohen incomprehensibly butchered one of my favourites of his recent poems - namely "A Thousand Kisses Deep" from Book of Longing - I must say that I had mixed feelings about the prospect of a new Cohen album. That being said, everybody's got to eat, and no one could begrudge the man who came down off the mount to find his manager had absconded with the greater portion of his life's earnings from doing a little ad work to help the old machinery tick over.
When it finally came to it, I therefore approached this new album with some degree of trepidation. Being a life-long fan, I was a little worried that in the midst of the near universal acclaim it received, I might just be presented with another Bad as Me (Tom Waits's most recent release); that is to say, a highly polished, well executed, well produced album that somehow sounded like an only passable impression of what it actually could or should have been. With that in mind, I prepared myself for minor disappointment. How blissfully wrong I was proven.
"Going Home"
The first track on Old Ideas strikes this listener as a kind word spoken to Cohen's younger self. This is a humorous and touching reflection in which the old familiar weight has been lifted and the wrong-doings forgiven, where there is both fondness and admonishment for his younger self: "A sportsman and a shepherd, a lazy bastard living in a suit". The central verses of this song show that in growing old, Master Cohen is aware of everywhere and everything he has been, and ultimately the realities that those journeys have led him to. To quote at length (because analysis of these key lines will do them no justice at all):
"He [L.C.] wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeat
A cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn't what I want him to complete
I want to make him certain
That he doesn't have a burden
That he doesn't need a vision
That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
That is to say what I have told him
To repeat"
And what is repeated is that he is going home, without sorrow and without burden. These verses have echoes of "The Stranger Song", particularly in the line "Please understand, I never had a secret chart/To get me to the heart of this/Or any other matter'. "Going Home" is a humble rumination on the figure he has oft been portrayed as. It affirms, unobtrusively, that Leonard is here reborn, still full of charm and wit, utterly capable of casting his same old brand of magic, in new and effortless ways. He is ready for the next stage of the journey, be it death, another tour, or simply a journey "home".
"Amen"
Fluttering drums and stuttering banjos fill the air, and a slight Tom Waits rumble is in his growl this time; a minor menace, reminding the listener of the sordid acknowledgements of "Everybody Knows" off 1988's I'm Your Man album. A play on the rigours of old age in the base refrain "tell me again", this song is musically reminiscent of "Dance Me to the End of Love" and in fact could almost be a sequel to it, told from the limits of love at the height of old age. You get the slight feeling that Leonard could throw together any pair of binary oppositions (day/night, love/hate) with a dash of religious imagery and a pinch of profanity, and it would be par for the course for him; however, it is a formula which has become his staple, and to be honest, it is yet to fail him.
"Show Me the Place"
Once again, metaphysics, faith, devotion and a humorous old man each asks politely for our attention in this beautiful ballad, which musically reminds this listener of the last stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve (perhaps the tune is a little like a combination of "Fairy Tale of New York" and "Auld Lang Syne", but that could be just me). In this track, his voice is one fracture away from breaking all together, making this humble little number all the more beautiful.
"Darkness"
In "Tower of Song", Cohen quipped, "I was born like this, I had no choice/ I was born with the gift of a golden voice". This is sometimes taken to be a joke, a playful swipe at his own singing abilities, but no longer. The gold standard is set. Let Leonard Cohen's sine wave be printed on every bar in Fort Knox.
I would not be surprised to see Bob Dylan performing this song live in the near future. It's almost as if Len were somehow channelling Bob while writing this. I wonder if the same thing could happen in reverse, and what the result would be? This is possibly the standout track of the album; it swaggers around with righteous attitude and controlled abandon, while lyrically kicking ass (for want of a better phrase). After "Show Me the Place", I genuinely did not see this one coming. Good on ya, Len; not much more can be said. Genuinely awesome.
"Anyhow"
This track showcases Len's voice at the height of its seductive powers. Who knew gravel could melt butter? Although the album as a whole arguably features an over-abundance of synthesisers, this is the one track which really benefits from it. Reminds this listener of something from Tom Waits's Blue Valentine album, which can only be a good thing.
"Crazy to Love You"
It's nice to hear the old Spanish guitar return on this one. This song hearkens back to 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony; in terms of tone and lyrical content, it reminds me of songs such as "A Singer Must Die" and "I Tried to Leave You". Additionally, the reference to "the tower [of song]" makes this old fan smile, as does the use of the word 'crazy' as a noun (not enough people do that these days). Lyrically and acoustically dexterous, this song is another reason why we should all be glad that Leonard is still with us.
"Come Healing"
There is another 'end of year' vibe on this song, although I'm not sure if it's just me imagining that. The juxtaposition of Len's gravelled tones and his (almost too sweet to bear) angelic choir is most prominent on this track. I admire the way that the first two verses are not sung by the man himself, but by his feathered entourage; it reveals the transcendence of his work, showing that long after his demise, his songs will be sung by everyone, figures of beauty and those oppressed by them alike.
That being said, there is something a little too tawdry in the message of this song for my liking. Len has the (enviable) ability to string any combination of words along the lines of 'solitude', 'mercy', 'longing', 'spirit', 'heart', 'body', 'mind', 'darkness', 'altar', 'love' and 'light' together, and create another piece that fits neatly within the canon of his work. However, aside from the very tender production on this song (it does feel wonderful) and a few cracking lines ("Behold the gates of mercy/ In arbitrary space" and "An undivided love/ The heart beneath is teaching / To the broken heart above"), this little number pales due to a sheer lack of boldness in comparison to some of this great master's other works.
"Banjo"
This is my least favourite song on the album. I'm sorry to be an arse about this, but banjos just don't float. Sorry Len, you lost me on this one. It is a fun little track in its own way, but one which I will not be adding to my mental Cohen repository.
"Lullaby"
This is a really lovely song, but the lyrics nag at me a little. I love the idea of "The wind in the trees is talking in tongues" - it's as great a throwaway line as they come, and the shared delivery of the chorus with his angel choir is delightful - however, "The mouse ate the crumb/ Then the cat ate the crust/Now they've fallen in love/ And they're talking in tongues" kind of falls on its face. Musically it's very enjoyable, the Spanish guitar, gentle mouth-harp, lazy bass line, idle synth and unobtrusive drum beat conjuring images of an afternoon spent snoozing quietly in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere in the midday heat of the world. Not his best effort ever, but greatly enjoyable nonetheless.
"Different Sides"
The parting shot of the album reminds us why Mr Cohen is king. This song takes the Cohen formula which I mentioned (somewhat derisively) earlier, and demonstrates how and why it beats the hell out of anything anyone else has got. Lyrically, this song is almost flawless; up to and including the first chorus, there are some of the finest lines of Cohentry in recent memory:
"We find ourselves on different sides
Of a line nobody drew
Though it all may be one in the higher eye
Down here where we live it is two
I to my side call the meek and the mild
You to your side call the Word
By virtue of suffering I claim to have won
You claim to have never been heard
Both of us say there are laws to obey
But frankly I don't like your tone
You want to change the way I make love
I want to leave it alone"
And with that, what else can be said?
In conclusion...
With Old Ideas, Leonard Cohen humbly demonstrates that his life in art is far from over. Whether this is his last musical effort before he leaves us mortals to commune with the spirit eternal, or if it is just the beginning of a new stage in his career, Old Ideas will be celebrated for years to come as a beautiful addition to the canon of his works. In many ways, Cohen has confronted and quieted the howlings of his youth on this album, showing a world which has often misunderstood him that, as an old man, he is finally settled with the notion of himself; and what's more, this revelation is delivered with the most extraordinary grace.
G-d bless you, Master Cohen, for you have blessed us.
"Fresh, vital ideas from a 77-year-old master"
A new Leonard Cohen album is always something to look forward to, but it is important to acknowledge that besides the revelatory live albums of 2009 and 2010, he has not delivered a memorable album since 1992's studio effort, The Future.
2001's Ten New Songs had some fine moments, especially up front, but as an album its sparse -instrumentation and patchy songwriting did not stand up to regular listening.
2004's Dear Heather with its lite-jazz arrangements was also uneven and gave the impression that Cohen had spent so much time focusing on his lyrics that he had forgotten about the music, or lost interest.
On the face of it, it looked like he was a spent force; a man slowly fading out of the limelight.
Magnificent return
Then in 2008, at the age of 74, Cohen announced a return to the stage with a new tour.
It was a huge surprise and the subsequent concerts were heralded by fans and critics alike. The resulting live albums, Live in London and Songs from the Road, illustrated how magnificent Cohen's live return had been.
Now we get the first new Cohen studio album in seven years and it is bloody good -- a return to form, if you must.
Titled Old Ideas (Sony Music), it is very firmly rooted in the gospel and blues of the American South, which is a perfect fit for his deep whispering voice that seems to gain more gravitas with age.
The opening track, Going Home, has Cohen at his playful lyrical best while the music gently shuffles along underneath his captivating voice. "I'd love to speak with -Leonard/ He's a sportsman and a shepherd/ He's a lazy bastard/ Living in a suit/ But he does say what I tell him/ Even though it isn't welcome/ He just doesn't have the freedom/ To refuse."
Best parts
When he finally breaks into the gospel-tinged chorus about going home, the song takes on a certain level of poignancy because of Cohen's return to the stage and the fact that he is now 77.
The backing vocalists on this track -- and indeed the entire album -- deserve a special mention. As a friend said the other day when we were taking a listen to Old Ideas for the first time: "If you were a backing singer, you'd want to sing on Leonard Cohen albums because you'd get all the best parts."
I have to concur and Sharon Robinson, Dana Glover, Jennifer Warnes and the Webb Sisters are on top form throughout Cohen's new offering, acting as a solid counterbalance to the great man's deep voice.
The blues-driven number Amen is another highlight, gently moving through the ether, sounding like something that Tom Waits may have recorded if he found himself in a sedate mood.
Darkness takes an all-too-familiar blues riff and transforms it into a mellow jam with superb organ work by Neil Larsen.
The result is something that would not have seemed out of place on Bob Dylan's Modern Times.
Coming together
Although these three songs stand out after a few weeks of listening, the real treat of Old Ideas is how well it sits together as an album.
As mentioned already, it has been a while since Cohen managed to sustain a batch of songs this impressive and it appears as though the relationship he has established with his band over the past four years has benefited this album immensely.
I hope we get another album from Cohen and his collaborators before he disappears back into the wilderness.
But getting back to the new album, the true test of Old Ideas will lie in the listening -- and once 2012 has passed into 2013, we will have a better understanding of just where this new album sits in Cohen's admirable canon.
But for now it sounds fresh, vital and the best thing the world's greatest singing poet has recorded in almost 20 years. And that truly is something to celebrate.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas' - umoran, razocaran i neodoljiv"
Ravno Do Dna (Croatia) by Marko Podrug, February 10, 2012
Ocjena: 7/10
Slavni kanadski kantautor objavio je novi studijski album nakon osam godina diskografske hibernacije.
Nekako se stvorio dojam da Leonard Cohen u svojoj postbankrot fazi sve radi preko neke stvari. Za lovu. Mozda to i stoji, no kao i takav, navodno nemotiviran, uspio je napraviti jedan od najboljih koncerata kojega je zagrebacka Arena dozivjela. Nasilno reaktiviran iz duboke mirovine, Cohen je okupio vrhunski bend, zaigrao na nepoderivu kartu vlastite karizme i postigao da glazbeni svijet slavi njegov povratak poput kakvog vjerskog cuda.
Nakon turneje, tijekom koje je znao i kolabirati na pozornici, Cohen je objavio i album. Prvi studijski poslije osam godina posta. Ako se u Areni njegova nevoljkost i nije osjetila, album „Old Ideas" nudi malo drugaciju realnost. Mozda onu pravu. Leonard Cohen je, ako je suditi prema ponudenih deset novih pjesama, umorniji, sjetniji i usporeniji nego ikada ranije.
Pa što sad? Pa ništa. To su otprilike oduvijek bili njegovi aduti , no ovoga puta izostao je Cohenov poslovicni vic, duhovitost koju je znalacki provlacio kroz svoje sumorne litanije, onaj trenutak u pjesmi kad njegova depresivnost ponudi dašak optimizma. Trenutak koji ga je cinio intelektualcem medu umjetnicima, sekunda samoironije izmedu dva stiha u kojemu bi rekao puno o svom shvacanju glazbe, a još više o sebi samome. Takva se sekunda osjeti samo u uvodnoj „Going Home".
što je ostalo? Ostala je njegova karizma, a to nije malo. Cohenov vokal i dalje je jedan od najugodnijih uhu. Njegovo naglašavanje rijeci i njihovo naprasno rezanje, njegovo poniranje u baritonske dubine i dozirani umorni uzdasi, svi ti elementi koji su od ovog nesudenog odvjetnika napravili globalnu glazbenu velicinu, još su tu. Ostala je i njegova urodena sposobnost da sklepa album koji ce kriticari proglasiti „duhovnim", u stihovima prepoznati njegova standardna eksperimentiranja s religijama i lucidna propitivanja o smislu zivota.
Leonard Cohen rijetko je kad albume nakrcavao zvukovima, a ovoga je ogolio koliko je mogao. Pracen snenim ritmom bubnjarske metlice, prebiranjem po akusticnim zicama, gudalom po violoncelu i jednokratnim izdahom u usnu harmoniku, Cohen je stvorio poprilicno komornu atmosferu, komorniju nego inace, što je valjda sasvim prikladno njegovim godinama. Da mu osamdeseta diše za vratom jasno je vec od „Going Home", primamljivi umjetnikov umor razlijeze se i po „Show Me the Place", „Anyhow" i „Lullaby". No, koliko god se trudio da svakim novim otpjevanim ili izrecitiranim slogom slušateljima nametne mišljenje da mu je kraj blizu, faktora x se ne moze riješiti. što Cohen više ponire u vlastitu kompliciranu nutrinu, to ga je ljepše slušati.
Ipak, na trenutke je malo i pretjerao. U „Darkness", gdje nas uvjerava da „nema buducnosti", zazvucao je kao da odraduje posao, da pjeva s rukama u dzepu i jedva ceka da producent kaze: „Dosta za danas, idemo doma". S druge strane, „Crazy to Love You" je u tri minute aranzmanski potpuno izdahnula.
Jak adut albuma je kolaboracija sa zenskim vokalima, koji Cohena posebno dobro „dizu" u „Come Healing" i „Different Sides", mozda i ponajboljoj pjesmi na „Old Ideas". Nešto drugacije ozracje od ustaljenog postigao je u „Banjo", gdje vokalom vozi po blues stazi, a podlogom po countryju. Album skriva i katarzicnu, tipicno cohenovsku, sedmominutnu „Amen", koja je vec proglašena novom „Hallelujah". Vidjet cemo, onu potmulu snagu definitivno posjeduje...
Leonard Cohen snimio je iskreni album, jer drugaciji nikad nije ni znao, na kojem je nastavio razradivati vlastite stare ideje. Album koji necemo slaviti kao vjersko cudo, ali cemo ga slušati s poštovanjem i ugodom u duši.
"Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas' - tired, disappointed and overwhelming"
Ravno Do Dna (Croatia) by Marko Podrug, February 10, 2012
Rating: 7/10
The famous Canadian singer-songwriter has released a new studio album in eight years the record mode.
Somehow the impression that Leonard Cohen in his postbankrot stage everything is working through some things. For hunting. Maybe it is, but as such, apparently unmotivated, he managed to make one of the best concerts by the Zagreb Arena has experienced. Violent reactivated from deep retirement, Cohen has assembled a top band, played on the indissoluble map their own charisma and scored the music world is celebrating his return like a religious miracle.
After the tour, during which he knew and collapse on stage, Cohen has released an album. The first eight years of study after fasting. If you are in the arena of his reluctance and did not feel, the album "Old Ideas" offers a slightly different reality. Maybe the right one. Leonard Cohen, to judge from the offered ten new songs, tired, full of sorrow and slower than ever before.
So what now? Well, nothing. These have always been about its advantages, but this time missed the proverbial Cohen's joke, humor that was expertly running through his gloomy litany, one moment in the song when his depression offer a touch of optimism. The moment that made him among the intellectual artists, second irony between the two verses in which he said would be a lot about his understanding of music, and even more about himself. This is second only felt in the opening "Going Home".
What is left? The other is his charisma, and it's not a bit. Cohen's vocals are still one of the most comfortable ear. His emphasis on the words and they suddenly cut, his plunge into the deep baritone and dosed tired sighs, all these elements that are of this would-be lawyers made global musical greatness, are still there. The other is his innate ability to sklep album that critics will declare "spiritual" in verse to recognize his experiments with standard religions and lucid inquiry into the meaning of life.
Leonard Cohen rare when albums nakrcavao sounds, and this is how it can be stripped. Accompanied by dreamy rhythm drum plant, selecting the acoustic strings, cello and bow by the single-exhalation harmonica, Cohen has created quite an atmosphere chamber, chamber than usual, which is probably quite appropriate to his age. In his eighty breathing down your neck, it is clear from "Going Home", inviting the artist's fatigue was heard and the "Show Me the Place", "Anyhow," and "Lullaby." But as they tried that with every syllable sung, or izrecitiranim listeners impose the opinion that his end is near, factor X can not be resolved. What Cohen delves into the more complicated your own inner self, that it is better to listen.
However, the moments are few and too far. In "Darkness," which assures us that "no future", it sounded like it does the job, to sing with their hands in their pockets and can not wait to producer says: "Enough for today, let's go home."On the other hand, "Crazy to Love You" in three minutes arrangments completely exhaled.
A strong advantage is the collaboration album with female vocals, which Cohen's well "rise" in "Come Healing" and "Different Sides", perhaps ponajboljoj the song "Old Ideas." Something different atmosphere than usual scored in the "Banjo", where the vocals drive the blues circuit, and backed by country music. Album hides and cathartic, a typical Leonard Cohen, sedmominutnu "Amen", which has already declared a new "Hallelujah." We will see, that definitely has a hollow force ...
Leonard Cohen has made an honest album, because different never knew where he continued to work out their old ideas. The album that we will celebrate a religious miracle, but we will listen with respect and pleasure in the soul.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"«This is vintage!»"
Nordlys (Norway) by Egon Holstad, February 1, 2012
LEONARD COHEN «Old Ideas»
OK, så har ikke fotball og sørgmodig rock med smarte tekster så forbasket mye med fotball å gjøre, men parallellen ligger der dog. For noen år siden så jeg en av de siste kampene til den danske keeperkjempen Peter Schmeichel. Da stod han for klubben Manchester City, og karrieren var på hell. Så foretar han et helt vilt tigersprang av en annen verden, og leverte ei feberredning i sterk kontrast med alle fysiske lover. Da utbrøt den fjetrede, engelske kommentatoren: «This is vintage! This is vintage»! Det var årgangskvaliteten han snakket om, som om det var en vin vi hadde med å gjøre.
Det kunne også vært Leonard Cohen anno 2012 som var temaet. Leonard Cohen har det ikke travelt på sine gamle dager, og godt er det. På sitt første album på åtte år er han tilbake med et produkt som på ingen måte lukter misbruk av navn for inntjeningens del (og Far kunne definitivt trengt det, da han for ikke lenge siden var helt bankerott, flintskalla munk uten nåla i veggen).
Det er ikke mange med større og kraftigere stemmesignatur enn Cohen, der han snakkeslentresynger seg gjennom låter om død, fordervelse, anger, religion, ensomhet, alderdom, rus og fortapelse, men som alltid med en snert av kølmørk humor som fjerner enhver mistanke om selvmedlidenhet og sutring. Tøffe menn sutrer ikke. Cohen er en tøff mann. Stemmen som snakker ligner til forveksling på den norske romanfiguren Thomas F, glitrende skrevet om av Kjell Askildsen. Denne gamle, furete, kloke og morsomme mannen som betrakter verdenen filtrert gjennom levd liv og dyrekjøpte erfaringer.
Man føler seg alltid litt dum når man hører på Cohen (fordi han er så lur), og litt klokere etter å ha hørt på ham (av samme grunn). Det som pleier å være det største aberet med eldre musikere er stemmen. Her er menn, av en eller annen grunn, mest utsatt. At de ikke klarer å gå så høyt som de gjorde, at de ikke makter å holde tonene like lenge, at litt av trøkket er borte. I Cohens tilfelle er det ikke et problem overhodet, fordi fraseringer opp og ned gjennom skalaene aldri har vært hans forse.
Tvert imot høres han nesten bare enda tøffere ut. «I got no future/ I know my days are few», synger han i den småbluesy Darkness. Mon dét, men det er ikke mange i bransjen i dag som matcher autoritetsnivået til Cohen.
This is vintage! This is vintage!
"'This is vintage!'"
Nordlys (Norway) by Egon Holstad, February 1, 2012
LEONARD COHEN «Old Ideas»
OK, so does not have football and mournful rock with smart lyrics so damn much with the football to do, but the parallel is there, however. A few years ago I saw one of the last battles of the Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel giant. Then he stood for the club Manchester City, and his career was in decline. So he makes a completely wild tiger of a different world, and delivered a feverish life in stark contrast with all laws of physics.Then exclaimed the spellbinding, English commentator: "This is vintage! This is vintage! " That was vintage quality he was talking about, as if it were a wine, we had to do.
It could also have been Leonard Cohen announced 2012 as the theme. Leonard Cohen is not busy in his old age, and well it is.On his first album in eight years he's back with a product that in no way smells misuse of names for the earnings portion (and Dad could definitely needed it, as he not long ago was completely bankrupt, flint called a monk without a hook in the wall).
There are not many with larger and more powerful voice signature than Cohen, where he snakkeslentresynger through songs about death, destruction, anger, religion, loneliness, aging, substance abuse and destruction, but always with a touch of kølmørk humor that removes any suspicion of self-pityand lamenting. Tough men do not whine. Cohen is a tough man.The voice that speaks confusingly similar to the Norwegian fictional character Thomas F, glittering written about by Kjell Askildsen. This old, wrinkled, wise and funny man who regards the world filtered through living life and dearly bought experience.
You feel always a little silly when you're listening to Cohen (because he is so clever), and a little wiser after having listened to him (for the same reason). What tends to be the biggest catch with older musicians is the voice. Here are men, for some reason, most at risk. That they can not go as high as they did, that they are not able to hold notes as long as that bit of punch is gone. In Cohen's case, it is not a problem at all, because the phrasing up and down the scales have never been his forte.
On the contrary, he almost sounds even cooler. "I got no future / I know my days are few," he sings in the småbluesy Darkness. Mon, but there are not many in the industry today that matches the level of authority to Cohen.
This is vintage! This is vintage!
ENGLISH VERSION.
"En stemme fra dypet"
Tromso (Norway) by Torkel Nohr Fjørtoft, February 2, 2012
Leonard Cohen viser at han på ingen måte har glemt sine mesterlige evner.
Det er alltid litt skummelt for fansen når en gammel og lenge siden genierklært artist skal gi ut en ny plate.
åtte år etter hans siste studioalbum var det ingen selvfølge at musikkens grand old man, en av tidenes største låtskrivere, Leonard Cohen, skulle produsere mer musikk. I alle fall ikke av et slikt kaliber som han nå har gjort.
Knallsterkt verk
"Old Ideas" er rett og slett en nydelig og sterk plate fra ende til annen, og jeg kan ikke forstå annet enn at de som vokste opp med Cohen og tidløse klassikere som debutplata "Songs of Leonard Cohen" føler at de har fått servert en tiretters luksusmiddag.
- I'd like to speak with Leonard?
Slik lyder åpningen av første spor, en suggererende og melodiøs diktfremføring over et minimalistisk komp av tangenter og damekor. Herfra må resten av platen ses på som et sammenhengende verk, som drar deg inn i hjernen til en gammel mann med mange minner. Tekstene er dype uten å bli pretensiøse, bandet gjør diskré en fantastisk jobb, spesielt gitarist Javier Mas, og sjefen selv høres ut som en stemme fra dypet som ikke vil noe annet enn å dele all sin kunnskap med lytteren.
De gamle er enda eldst
Leonard Cohen er et av de største navnene i moderne musikkhistorie, og står bak en makeløs katalog av klassikere og hits. Det er lenge siden han var ung og fremadstormende, og det er lenge siden han var en dominerende figur i populærmusikkens verden, men i disse elektroniske dansetider (misforstå meg rett, jeg elsker elektronisk dansemusikk) så gjør det meg dypt lykkelig å vite at en av de virkelige bautaene enda vet hvordan man lager tidløs musikk.
"A voice from the depths"
Tromso (Norway) by Torkel Nohr Fjørtoft, February 2, 2012
Leonard Cohen shows that he in no way have forgotten their masterful skills.
It's always a little scary for the fans as an old and long ago declared a genius artist will be releasing a new album.
Eight years after his last studio album, there was no guarantee that the music's grand old man, one of the greatest songwriters, Leonard Cohen, was to produce more music. At least not of such caliber that he has done.
Strong bright works
"Old Ideas" is simply a beautiful and strong album from beginning to end, and I can not conclude otherwise than that those who grew up with Cohen and timeless classics like the debut album "Songs of Leonard Cohen" feel that they have served a tiretters luxury dinner.
- I'd like to speak with Leonard?
This sounds the opening of the first track, a hypnotic and melodic poetry performance over a minimalist complement of keys and female choirs. From here the rest of the disc is seen as a coherent work that goes into the brain of an old man with many memories. The lyrics are deep without being pretentious, the band does a wonderful job discreetly, especially guitarist Javier Mas, and the boss himself sound like a voice from the depths that do not want anything but to share all his knowledge with the listener.
The old is oldest yet
Leonard Cohen is one of the biggest names in modern music history, behind an unrivaled catalog of classics and hits. It islong since he was young and aspiring, and it is long since hewas a dominant figure in popular music world, but in these electronic dance times (get me wrong, I love electronic dance music) so it makes me profoundly happy to know that one of the real pillars even know how to make timeless music.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leo ser seg tilbake"
LEONARD COHEN
Old Ideas
He's a lazy bastard living in a suit..
Dette er Leonard Cohen som snakker om seg sjøl i tredjeperson i åpningslåten «Going home» på nye «Old Ideas».
77 år har han blitt. Så høyt opp i populærmusikkens alderspyramide er det vel bare Cohen og Odd Børretzen som har beholdt den poetiske kreativiteten. De to er egentlig ikke totalt ulike etter hvert, på hver sitt språk.
Cohens forrige album, «Dear Heather» i 2004, var ikke av hans sterkeste. Men nå har han funnet tilbake til seg selv og går videre. En opptur, altså.
Det er lite igjen av den lyse, ganske klare sangstemmen fra 40+ år tilbake. Cohen resiterer eller hvisker mer enn han synger. Men i de sparsomme og smakfulle arrangementene på plata fungerer det.
Ellers er det tekstene som er hovedbeholdningen. «Old Ideas» er på mange måter et oppgjør med livet. Og med kjærligheten og lidenskapen - på vondt og godt. Kanskje er albumet Cohens skriftestol. Til og med humoren er ganske mørk, tidvis selvironisk som i «Going home».
For enkelte kan det sikkert bli i meste laget med laber rødvinsstemning i lengden. Bare «Darkness» har antydning til uptempo. Men ingen er lavmælt så høylytt som Cohen.
"Old man of his hat"
LEONARD COHEN
Old Ideas
He's a lazy bastard living in a suit...
This is Leonard Cohen who talks about himself in third person in the opening song "Going Home" new "Old Ideas."
77 years he has become. So high up in popular music's age pyramid is probably only Cohen and Odd Børretzen that has retained the poetic creativity. The two are not really totally different for each, to each his own language.
Cohen's last album, "Dear Heather" in 2004, was not his strongest. But now he has rediscovered itself and move on. A very good year, that is.
There is little left of the bright, pretty clear singing voice from 40+ years ago. Cohen recites or whisper more than he sings. But in the sparse and tasteful arrangements on the album works.
Otherwise, the texts which are the main inventory. "Old Ideas" is in many ways a settlement with his life. And with love and passion - the bad and good. Perhaps the album Cohen's confessional. Even the humor is quite dark, sometimes self-ironic as in "Going Home".
For some it can certainly be too much wine with lackluster mood in length. Only the "Darkness" has a hint of uptempo. But no one is low-key as loudly as Cohen.
"Music: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
* * * * (4 stars out of 5)
There's a certain fear that accompanies any new releases from an old, established artist; always the hope they haven't gone completely mad in the interim, the hope they can still capably produce music not merely a rehash of what has been and gone before.
Cohen's aptly titled Old Ideas is a beautifully wry nod to his honest and plain acknowledgement of this fear. He is still dealing with same themes he always has but, despite the ripe age of seventy-seven, he hasn't lost an ounce of his charm or ability.
Those more accustomed to Cohen's output from the 80s and 90s will note the sparseness of this most recent release. Gone are the drum machines and dense productions of old; instead, we are presented with impressive and persistent minimalism, a bare-bones instrumentation that allows his voice to carry through.
And to whom it may concern: his voice has not lost its beauty. It remains deep and hypnotic as ever; the man is still blessed with one of the most powerful and unique instruments in popular music history, a revelation that just keeps on giving. Novelty value be damned. Cohen doesn't need it.
Cohen's lyrics have always been likened to poetry, and that's no less true of his current output. On display here is a wonderful mixture of self-deprecation and humor, love and spirituality. Influences of gospel music, perhaps more hidden in his older records, stride right to the forefront ('Show Me the Place,' 'Come Healing'). The 3rd person opening track 'Going Home' displays his self-critical wit, as intact and punchy as it has ever been, as he remarks "He will speak these words of wisdom / Like a sage, a man of vision / Though he knows he's really nothing / But the brief elaboration of a tube." Brief elaboration indeed. If only we could all be so lucky.
The singing praises need not persist. The album is a true pleasure - sure to please already eager fans and perhaps, with its more stark approach, pull in a few new listeners who may have been afraid of his more synthesizer driven forays in years past. The only problem here is one of innovation.
As addressed before, Cohen is acutely aware his words follow the same themes they always have: the arrangements, songwriting, production, all incredibly solid and, for Cohen, risk-free. While some of his contemporaries have engaged in bizarre (and largely unsuccessful) departures elsewhere, be it Christmas albums or covering jazz standards, Cohen keeps doing what he knows he does well; a mild disappointment perhaps, but it may well be for the best.
That's the end of it. The whole record is a pleasure: clean, excellently written, but ultimately predictable. Another good record by a great artist, acting the way we've come to expect. Perhaps I'm being hard on an old man.
But that voice. Oh, that wonderful voice.
"Leonard Cohen: "Old Ideas" (2012) CD Review"
Leonard Cohen is the best living songwriter. It's as simple as that. It's strange to me that there are still many people who are unaware of who he is. After all, his songs have been covered by a large number of artists, including Judy Collins, U2, R.E.M., Pixies, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, John Cale, Neil Diamond, Martha Wainwright, Linda Thompson and Concrete Blonde. And his songs have been used in films like Breaking The Waves, Pump Up The Volume, A Wedding and Natural Born Killers. And he's put out some incredible records.
And now at age 77, he's released a new batch of tunes under the title Old Ideas.
Like a lot of fans who caught shows on his recent world tour, I was hoping that "Feels So Good" and "Born In Chains" would be included on this release. But my disappointment at the absence of those particular songs evaporated the moment I put the disc in. This is an incredible album.
Of course, it's true that I'm a bit overwhelmed at getting to enjoy all this new material - and it's uncertain just where this record will fit into his overall output after a few years of listening to it - but my initial reaction is that this is among his best recordings.
Here are some thoughts...
"Going Home" - A song about the relationship between Leonard the person and Leonard the performer. This isn't the first song in which he's written about himself or included his own name in a lyric. "Famous Blue Raincoat" comes to mind, in which he signs the letter (thus, the song), "Sincerely, L. Cohen." And more recently, on his 2004 release Dear Heather, he presented "Because Of," in which he has women sing, "Look at me, Leonard." Present in this song, as in "Because Of," is his wonderful sense of humor. He refers to himself as "a lazy bastard living in a suit." The line, "Going home without the costume that I wore" makes me wonder if this was written right at the end of his world tour.
"Amen" - One of Leonard Cohen's most famous songs is "Hallelujah" (from 1984's Various Positions - one of my favorite records). And now he gives us "Amen." It's interesting how often Leonard Cohen uses religious imagery and language in his songs, and he seems to take those lofty words and ideas and bring them down to a human level of sweat and desire. And in doing so, to raise the physical to a more spiritual level. And that raises us all, doesn't it? This is one of the CD's best songs. The music is beautiful (Robert Korda is on violin). And of course the lyrics are excellent, with lines like "Tell me again/When the day has been ransomed/And the night has no right to begin/Try me again/When the angels are panting/And scratching at the door to come in."
"Show Me The Place" - Leonard has that great deep voice that makes your body quiver and your soul smile. In this one, he sings, "But there were chains/So I hastened to behave/There were chains/So I loved you like a slave." Oh man. And that's Jennifer Warnes singing the woman's parts.
"Darkness" - This is the one I knew before, having seen him perform it in concert a few times. The first time was in San Jose in 2009, and I was totally blown away. I might have been crying, laughing - I don't know - I was three or four feet above my skin, and recollections are emotionally charged so I'm not sure of their accuracy. "I thought the past would last me/But the darkness got that too." This song is so damn cool, so sexy, with lines like "You were young and it was summer/I just had to take a dive" and "I ain't had much lovin' yet/But that's always been your call." And the full band from his tour is present on this track, which is wonderful.
"Anyhow" - Leonard Cohen makes even the most twisted of relationships sound appealing. "I know you have to hate me, but could you hate me less." When he sings, "I'm naked and I'm filthy," I think how I'd love to be even one tenth as sexy at 40 as he is at 77.
"Crazy To Love You" - It's so great to hear a song with just acoustic guitar and vocals, reminiscent of his earliest material. This is one of the album's best tracks (perhaps my favorite, if I were forced to choose). The first line is "Had to go crazy to love you." And I love these lines: "But crazy has places to hide in/That are deeper than any goodbye." A phrase like "souvenir heartache" shows you just what an excellent writer he is. So much is said with two words.
"Come Healing" - Angelic voices open this song, singing for nearly a minute before Leonard Cohen comes in. This is an uplifting and hopeful tune with lines like "Come healing of the body/Come healing of the mind."
"Banjo" - This song has a playful spirit, and is a bit silly and delightful. It finds a "broken banjo bobbing/On the dark, infested sea." The wind took it from someone, and now Leonard Cohen watches it. I think of a banjo as a bright and happy instrument, and in this song it is then positioned in a "dark, infested sea." I love this song, and it features Dino Soldo and Neil Larsen, two members of The Unified Heart Touring Band.
"Lullaby" - The first of the new material presented on Leonard Cohen's world tour was "Lullaby." Unfortunately, I wasn't present at any of those particular shows. So this is my first exposure to it. Here's a taste of the lyrics: "Well the mouse ate the crumb/Then the cat ate the crust/Now they've fallen in love/And they're talking in tongues/If your heart is torn/I don't wonder why/If the night is long/Here's my lullaby/Here's my lullaby." And yes, it's a perfect song to listen to before drifting off to sleep. Sharon Robinson sings on this track (she also sings on "Amen," "Darkness" and "Banjo").
"Different Sides" - I love the opening line, "We find ourselves on different sides/Of a line nobody drew." This song feels a bit like his late 1980s, early 1990s material - the steady rhythm, the keyboard. That's Neil Larsen on the Hammond B3, piano, the synth bass and percussion on this track. The last line of this song, and thus the album, is "You want to change the way I make love/But I want to leave it alone."
Now I hope Leonard Cohen gets right to work on the next release (with "Feels So Good" and "Born In Chains"). I'm also hoping he'll follow through on the tentative plans to release the final concert of the tour on CD and/or DVD. There was some talk of it at the time, but that it wouldn't happen until after this studio release came out. That live album would give us "Born In Chains," but unfortunately not "Feels So Good."
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Pinpoint Music by Kaptain Carbon, February 2, 2012
I fucking love Leonard Cohen's work. This is important when reading this review. Leonard Cohen, for me, resides in a special place for silver age singer songwriters whose legacy and consistency eclipses their mortal age. They can do no wrong because they have earned that right. Johnny Cash did this with his late year American Recordings. Tom Waits has done the same thing with every album he makes. Leonard Cohen's four decade career in making phenomenal albums will perhaps throw off my objectivity. It will also, perhaps, obscure my vision when looking at an average album.
Leonard Cohen is a singer songwriter who began his musical foray in his thirties after a mildly successful career as a poet. Since 1969, Cohen has sporadically released records which have continued to redefine the boundaries between music and poetry. Even his album titles are in the vein of fragmentary artwork. Ten New Songs, Songs from a Room, Songs of Love and Hate Recent Songs all speak to an intimate immediacy which could come in a slender paperback book.
Old Ideas is Cohen's 12th album and first in 8 years. It is also the first album since Cohen's financial fallout as well as two well received live albums. Old Ideas also comes with an almost unanimous backing from critics, fans and me who have all agreed Cohen, as an artist, will continue to make good albums until he is laid to rest. Much like that slender book of poetry, Old Ideas promises nothing new apart from subtle changes in musical accompaniment. It will contain dark songs printed against a white background just with different stanzas and spacing. This is the same thing which has happened -- well- since 1969.
The thing which shines in Old Ideas is the words. Leonard Cohen, who is now 77, still retains an artful mastery syntax and word choices. Ever since his 1969 debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen, his sentences and phrases sink like weights in water. Every word is shrouded in a bleak darkness which never dismisses the possibility of redemption. Cohen's poetry wanders through a purgatorial world never settling on conclusions with elements both hallucinatory and sobering. This is the thing which makes his written work outstanding. Cohen's delicacy and bluntness with language carries the twice the weight as his music is increasingly becoming sparser.
Old Ideas continues the musical tradition started in 2001 with Ten New Songs with a base of smooth rock and jazz instrumentation combined with the ever present accompaniment of female accompaniment. While beginning in folk and moving in and out of accompaniment, Cohen seems to have settled into a comfortable adult sound. There are instances where he is speaking poetry over whips of music. Whether or not this is a product of age or artistic choice is not evident. What is certain is that Old Ideas is not an album destined for crossover success. Its appreciation will come from fans that are left after his other fans shrug their shoulders.
Old Ideas is certainly arresting in terms of emotion. The opener "Going Home" rolls out like the last will and self deprecating testament of an experienced sage. "Show me the Place" manages to make the listeners feel slightly uncomfortable with lyrics like "But there were chains so I hastened to behave / There were chains so I loved you like a slave." It is alright, Cohen is allowed to say whatever he wants. It is certainly enjoyable to have Cohen's albums still being made and whether or not Old Ideas stands up to the caliber of his other work is still being evaluated. Even Cohen's early 00's albums are starting to gain dimensions. Much like a fine wine or a 18th century landscape painting, its value and legacy will only grow exponentially with age. For now Old Ideas only gives me half the amount of chills as his early records. It is disappointing but I can not complain.
"Review: Spiritual vibe apparent in Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas'"
Throughout his 45-year career, Leonard Cohen has walked a fine line between love, sex and religion, often embodying the trinity in the same song.
Cohen doesn't abandon those themes on his latest album, Old Ideas, his first studio recording in eight years and perhaps one of his best in decades. Part of the reason the record succeeds is the honesty that the 77-year singer-songwriter delivers as he questions mortality, god and betrayal with poetic dignity.
In 2005, Cohen's former manager took the liberty of emptying his savings accounts, leaving the deep-throated troubadour nearly broke.
And though the singer won a civil suit in 2006, it's not believed that he's collected any money back. As a result, Cohen has had to spend his retirement years on the road singing for his supper.
But out of this adversity comes an album rooted heavily in his signature prayer-like delivery with an air of aesthetic realism.
Old Ideas kicks off with Going Home, a poem written by Cohen and set to music by Cohen and co-writer Patrick Leonard. Hearing Cohen's nearly-spoken voice delivery, it becomes a powerful ditty of Cohen's spiritual foundation as well as how he sees himself.
In the song, God says Cohen does what he tells him, even though it's not always welcome.
This sets the tone for the remainder of album of a man tormented by mistakes of the past and his growing older.
Cohen has never been a stranger to religious overtones: After all, he's the man who wrote Hallelujah.
But this album seems to provide more weighted spiritual balance. It's not religious, at least in any organized form, but it's definitely more pious than usual. One has to go no further than the record's second track Amen, a lengthy ominous piece that seems diametric to Hallelujah, where the singer questions if he's understood by god.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
The Yorker (UK) by Jonathan Eastwood, February 4, 2012
After an eight-year gap from the release of his last album Dear Heather and a critically-acclaimed world-tour, Leonard Cohen has at long last released his new album, Old Ideas. Unlike 2004's Dear Heather, which relied, in my humble opinion, too much upon keyboards and other synthetic sounds, Old Ideas has seen Cohen return to his forte as the significant folk-poet. While acknowledging that the album is called Old Ideas, it exemplifies the unique qualities of Cohen as a song-writer and a musician.
For the fan that has been waiting for this album (like me) it is with great pleasure to say that it has been worth the wait. Fans will be at captivated and put at ease from start to finish. The main qualities of Old Ideas would be the intimacy that connects each listener to Cohen's poetry and music to such an extent that we become familiar with him as an individual; and his ferociously witty and sardonic sense of humour that one can truly call his own.
But this is not an album that can only be enjoyed by the die-hard Leonard Cohen fan. No, this will be an enjoyable experience for those who are not familiar with Cohen's work, aside from the song 'Hallelujah' (yeah, he wrote that!). I would strongly suggest listening to the opening track, 'Coming Home', just to understand Cohen's sensual voice and poetry; 'The Darkness', is a must, with its mixture of 'bad-assed' folk rhythm and insane organ solo (which in writing sounds very lame, but trust me: it's good); and finally, 'Come Healing' with the beautiful poetry with his soulful backing-singers.
For me, this album has been thoroughly enjoyable. I cannot think of any other way to describe it. I would give this a 8.5/10. While I could not find fault with this album, I am aware that some may not find this album to be exiting or intense enough; it is an album for those who are prepared to really listen. This album deserves to be appreciated for what it is: beautiful art. For those who are not appeased with this album, I will refer you to the chorus of 'Anyhow': "Have mercy on me, baby. After all, I did confess, Even though you have to hate me, could you hate me less?"
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Keskisuomalainen (Finland) by Rauli Karjalainen, February 4, 2012
Old Ideas on osuva titteli 77-vuotiaan kanadalaisen laulaja-lauluntekijä Leonard Cohenin kahdennelletoista studioalbumille. Albumin "ideat" - usko, kuolema, rakkaus ja viha - todella ovat vanhoja. Ne ovat myös olleet Cohenin lyyrisen koneiston perusmateriaalia vuonna 1956 runokokoelmalla Let Us Compare Mythologies käynnistyneen taiteilijanuran alusta asti.
1960- ja -70-luvuilla Leonard Cohen, uskonnoista ammentava naistenmies, oli hitti, yksi sukupolvensa äänistä. 1980-luvulla häneltä ilmeistyi enää vain kaksi albumia, 1990-luvulla yksi. 2000-luvun taitteessa laulaja oli vetäytynyt niin syvälle zen-luostariin mietiskelemäään, että musiikkiura näytti loppuneen kokonaan.
Paluu esiintymislavoille tapahtui 2000-luvun lopussa, pääosin talousvaikeuksien vuoksi. Vanha maestro osoitti olevansa upeassa iskussa, eikä löysäksi hittijukeboksiksi muuttumisesta näkynyt merkkejä. Keskeinen tekijä Cohenin nykysuosion taustalla on vuoden 1984 sävellys Hallelujah, tuo television laulukilpailujen vakioveto, josta on valmistunut yli 200 cover-versiota.
Teemojensa lisäksi Cohen luottaa uutuudellaan vanhoihin keinoihin myös säveltäjänä. Perussoinnut muodostavat maaperän, jonka päällä muutaman nuotin ympärillä kiertelevät melodiat kuljettavat upeasti tekstiä. Koukut syntyvät riimien ja melodian hienovaraisesta yhteispelistä. Vaikutelma on punnittu ja tarkka.
Iän myötä Cohenin ääni on painunut entistä alemmas, ja nyt liikutaankin huumaavan syvillä taajuuksilla. Laulajan mukaan viimeisin madaltuminen johtuu tupakoinnin lopettamisesta. ääni on miksattu eteen, niin että käheä jutustelu muodostaa intiimin äänitilan, jossa kuulijan on vaivatonta ottaa artistin ojentamat sanat vastaan.
Mukana ovat myös Cohenin sovitukselliset tavaramerkit, kuten tumman äänen kanssa dialogia käyvä eteerinen naiskuoro ja Casio-syntikan soundipankkien estetiikasta ammentavat taustakompit. Hetkittäin poljento meinaa luiskahtaa joutavaksi viihdekitchiksi, mutta Cohenin upea läsnäolo pitää musiikkijunan raiteillaan.
Kymmenen laulun muodostama kokonaisuus on vahva ja tasapainoinen. Joukkoon mahtuu myös muutama mestariteos, kuten seitsemänminuuttinen järkäle Amen, pimeyden ympärille kudottu blues nimeltä Darkness sekä levyn lopettava parisuhdetilitys Different Sides.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Keskisuomalainen (Finland) by Rauli Karjalainen, February 4, 2012
Old Ideas is an apt title to 77-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen's twelfth studio album. Album "ideas" - faith, death, love and hate - really are old. They have also been in Cohen's lyrical opener in 1956, the basic material for poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, launched the artist's career from the beginning.
1960 - and-70s, Leonard Cohen, religions inspired ladies' man, was a hit, one of his generation of the votes. In the 1980s he was ilmeistyi only two albums, 1990's one. At the turn of the 2000s singer had pulled so deeply into the Zen monastery to meditate on the musical seemed to have ceased altogether.
Return esiintymislavoille took place at the end of the 2000s, mainly due to economic problems. The old maestro has demonstrated a stunning blow, and not loose hittijukeboksiksi a change in signs. A key factor in Cohen's current popularity is based on the 1984 musical Hallelujah, will bring the television singing competition standard traction, which has graduated more than 200 cover songs.
Themes, in addition to Cohen rely on novelty to the old ways is also a composer. The chords of the basic form of the soil on which the note several melodies are transported around the dithering exquisitely text. Hooks from riimien melody and subtle collusion. The effect is weighed and monitored.
With age, the Cohen's voice has sunk even lower, and now liikutaankin intoxicating deep frequencies. The singer is due to flattening of the last one to quit smoking.The sound is mixed in front, so that the hoarse voice chat to form an intimate space where the listener is easy to reach out artist in words.
Also included are an arrangement in Cohen's trademarks, such as a dark sound-by-step dialogue with ethereal female choir and Casio synthesizer sound banks derive their aesthetic taustakompit. At times cadence meinaa slip viihdekitchiksi fiddling, but Cohen's magnificent presence of the music to keep the train on track.
The combined total of ten songs have a strong and balanced. There are also a few masterpieces, such as the seven-minute chunks Amen, darkness, woven around a blues called Darkness, and the plate stopped marital settlement Different Sides.
"Welcome Return of the Old Master"
OLD IDEAS
Leonard Cohen
* * * * * (5 stars)
CANADIAN legend Leonard Cohen, one of the world's greatest living music artists, has released his first studio album in eight years.
Old Ideas features new songs, exploring love, sexuality, loss and death, which the remarkable songwriter has been crafting and honing for several years. Early versions of two tracks, Amen and Lullaby, were originally recorded in 2007. He also performed early versions of Lullaby and The Darkness during his recent world tour.
This master songwriter, musician and poet has inspired singers the world over, everyone from Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash and Joan Baez to Tori Amos.
In recent times, Leonard Cohen even made his mark on The X Factor after it featured his classic, Hallelujah. In 2008, it became the fastest-selling digital single in European history when three separate versions appeared simultaneously on the UK singles chart: Cohen's own original recording, a version by Jeff Buckley and one from X Factor winner Alexandra Burke.
Since Leonard Cohen returned to live performing in 2008, over two million fans have snapped up tickets to experience his mesmerising performances. Cohen's voice is a force of supernature, as critics regularly describe it, and this album will be one of
the big highlights of 2012.
"CD Review - Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas'"
Grade: B-
Legendary singer's intimate disc full of new masterpieces
Fans of Johnny Cash's final few records will find a pleasing parallel in Leonard Cohen's newest effort, "Old Ideas."
The intimacy of Cohen's voice, which sounds like it was breathed into the microphone from mere centimeters away, creates a personal aura that makes it easy to connect with the aging singer.
Cohen is a legendary figure, loved for the past five decades for the natural sound of his bare vocals conveying darkly poetic lyrics.
"Old Ideas" is his 12th album, full of wit and wisdom with roots in blues and gospel. All he's got to put into a song is his own experience.
Decades of desire, regret, suffering, misanthropy, love, hope, and humor shine through in these 10 tracks that will embark you on a journey through some of life's greatest trials and tribulations, narrated by the old prophet himself.
Cohen isn't wrapped up in deadlines -- death is his only one. Until the darkness takes him, his sunken baritone voice sings along to the beat of life. His lyrics and voice in "Show Me the Place" are raw poetry; the essence revered may bring you to a point at which you start to cry, as in the last whisper to one you hold dear.
In "Going Home," where humor and tambourine walk hand in hand, Cohen bubbles over with black humor.
"I'd like to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit," he sings.
It's a comedic commentary about the person he has become. He "knows he's really nothing," yet, his message is bold and beautiful. No costume can disguise this man's imperfect integrity.
Leonard conveys haunting righteousness with a Yiddish feel in "Amen." The horns aren't nearly as spooky as the hurt that spills through the piece. Leonard is no ladies' man and he certainly doesn't pretend to be.
"Anyhow" features the same heartbreak, as well as the vibraphone. "I know you had to hate me / But could you hate me less," Cohen sings.
The confession in this piece is that he's "crazy to love," but Cohen is committed to this sort of craziness and "it's deeper than any goodbye." This is the type of music that touches your soul with the ache that every heart feels time and again.
"Come Healing" nonchalantly begs for mercy, as in "Anyhow," and healing overtakes his unfinished longing. This is the most hopeful track on the album. The tone of his voice is almost sincere as he cries out for a Christian redemption.
"Darkness" is my personal favorite from the album. His bad boy bravado stirs up behind what one could only imagine as a smirking face. This piece is similar to Cohen's earlier guitar work.
Cohen closes the album with "Different Sides," discussing the possibility of remaining good in this wreck of a world. The song creates a trance-like feel with organ accompaniment as he leaves his feelings alone in the darkness.
Essential tracks to listen to on the album are "Amen," "Come Healing" and "Darkness." Cohen's heartbroken lyrics are a masterpiece that will lull you through the night until you are grinning just as he is.
"Review: Leonard Cohen"
The title of Leonard Cohen's new Old Ideas is, predictably, multifaceted. Upon the influential singer/songwriter's debut in the late 1960s, a Canadian making his music in the United States while being embraced mostly in England, Cohen has been defined by his dualities, the shadows of meaning lingering behind the corners of his notes and in the spaces between his words.
He's a man of contradictions. His atonal groan of a wheeze would never be mistaken for a poor singing voice. His songs have entered the popular vernacular in a manner that most singers would kill for, but chances are you've never heard his music - Jeff Buckley turned "Hallelujah" from a seething breakup song into a romantic croon fit for Shrek, another contradiction in and of itself. When he was younger, it never felt like he was writing songs from the perspective of a young man, and now that he's 77 years old, his themes of love and loss seem out of place and time, though they're identifiably from an old man's perspective. It's just that no old man should be going through what Leonard Cohen seems to.
His voice barely more than a whisper now - one so low that it's possible at the end of "Show Me the Place" to make out the brief gap in the audio mix when Cohen's incredibly sensitive mic feed was cut to avoid white noise - Cohen's bitterness hasn't subsided, his inherently Jewish sense of mythologized self-loathing firmly intact. "Show me the place / Where you want your slave to go," he sings, invoking Hebrew Biblical history as he did with "Hallelujah's" references to David and Samson.
As with other Cohen releases, the connection between faith and consciousness is firm, as it is with disappointment, personal apocalypse and tragedy. In that regard, the ideas are as old as his career. These are the same themes and principles on which Cohen has dwelled with his famous obsessiveness for five decades, and it seems not much has changed. His women still mistreat him ("I know you have to hate me / But could you hate me less?"), the Lord is still vengeful ("Tell me again / When the filth of the butcher / Is washed in the blood of the lamb") and he is still meek in the presence of uncaring beauty and sex ("By virtue of suffering I claim to have won"). His poetry is still gracefully fixated on the physical form of a once-loved woman, constantly at odds with the more guiltily orthodox shades of his consciousness. It's why so often visions of apocalypse enter his mind's eye, as they do on "Banjo."
But if Cohen seemed too tired, too acidic for a man his age when he was still on the better side of 50, here his indiscretions, lovers and woeful self-loathing seem better suited for a man half his age, a man who still contradictorily had both the time and impatience for such things. And perhaps that's the point. Because Old Ideas is also in reference to the ideas of an old man, one even more starkly aware of his own mortality than he was when he wrote "Death of a Ladies' Man" at the age of 24; the subject of "Darkness" is as much the emptiness of death as it is the pain of a hateful woman. He's also a man grappling with the idea of being Leonard Cohen (the album's opener, "Going Home," is innately about this conundrum) perhaps the young and ruthless and dogged Cohen that has become the principle subject of the song rather than its author, especially when his lyrics are so often recited by other artists.
There lies the contradiction: The old, worn-out ideas of a man who uses those same ideas now as a measurement of his own age. It's beautiful and tragic, like Leonard Cohen, the idea and the man.
"SoundCheck: Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas"
"I'd love to speak with Leonard/he's a sportsman and a shepherd." This is how Leonard Cohen begins his newest album, Old Ideas, his first in eight years. Frankly, I agree with this mysterious statement. I would like nothing more than to sit down and discuss life, love and music with the 77-year-old legend. No one seems to be more knowledgeable or experienced on the subjects than Cohen himself, which he conveys in his latest release Old Ideas. This album is filled with inner dialogue that makes such typical topics as life, death, religion and unrequited love seem like they have never been sung of before.
The record starts slowly; most tracks are ballads and feature Cohen's signature speak-singing blended with his haunting background singers. It then passes into a dark, reflective stage where he remembers former romances, as in "Crazy to Love You". However, Cohen then revisits his religious roots with "Come to Healing," and the following songs become less morose. With "Banjo" comes an increase in tempo as well as with "Different Sides," a song in which Cohen displays his stubborn mentality.
Old Ideas is an appropriate name for Cohen's latest album. It is a collection of songs showcasing the return to his soulful and insightful beginnings. Cohen's raspy vocals paired with the elegiac lyrics make for an opportune glance into the mind of a complicated man. After listening to Old Ideas, I truly would love to speak with Leonard.
"Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas' feels fresh -- and poignant"
Las Vegas Weekly by Annie Zaleski, February 1, 2012
The name of Leonard Cohen's 12th studio album can be interpreted several ways. On one hand, Old Ideas feels like a deliberate (and sly) nod to his age, 77, and a winking acknowledgement that detractors might consider the album full of, well, just what the title implies. On the other, it's an appropriately concise summation of the familiar tropes Cohen untangles on the album--themes as ornate as antique lace, as old-fashioned as a Victrola in a parlor.
In a voice that's somehow more baritone than ever, Cohen details the bleak aftermath of a tryst (the sultry "Darkness," a song with gentle blues licks), implores forgiveness from an ex by assuming a seductive tone ("Anyhow," a mellow number boasting jazzy piano, organ and brushed percussion) and metaphorically underscores how music can wound ("Banjo," with its fanciful horns and soulful female backing vocals). Other songs on Old Ideas touch on religion, mortality and romance using the same sort of genteel arrangements; if anything, the album feels like the natural extension of the lounge noir atmosphere and instrumentation of his recent world tour.
What makes Old Ideas even lovelier are the glimmers of optimism peeking through its grim air of finality. The latter tone has always permeated Cohen's oeuvre, but the subtle uplift in the music--the playful, mysterious organ snaking through "Different Sides," the wry implication in "Going Home" that Cohen's writing is directed by some unseen power--gives the album a lovely sense of lightness. Poetic and poignant.
Thanks to Jarkko for supplying this article.
"CD reviews: Cohen, DiFranco, Punch Brothers"
The Aspen Times by Stewart Oksenhorn, February 10, 2012
Leonard Cohen, "Old Ideas"
produced by Patrick Leonard, Anjani Thomas, Ed Sanders and Dino Soldo (Columbia)
On "Going Home," the opening track to "Old Ideas," Leonard Cohen's first album in eight years, the 77-year-old Canadian reveals a profound level of self-knowledge. The song (published as a poem in The New Yorker simultaneously with the album's release) has Cohen, the songwriter and narrator, treating Cohen, the person, as someone he knows perfectly. He know his habits and character, what he can do with him: "I love to speak with Leonard/ He's a sportsman and a shepherd/ ... He does what I tell him/ Even though it isn't welcome," Cohen sings in a song about death, redemption and stripping oneself clean of pretense.
This is the essence of Cohen as a musician -- knowing exactly what he is doing. Cohen's music is spare and slow, with no frills whatsoever -- no volume, no speed, no soloing -- to distract from each word and sound. To make music so bare, and to do it so masterfully, you pay attention to every last bit of it. And to do that, you look yourself in the mirror and keep looking.
The masterful "Old Ideas" is about the eternal mysteries Cohen always sings about: mortality, desire, the soul's search for peace. Somehow, on songs that are as much prayer and blessings as music, he brings clarity to these elusive subjects, as well as wisdom, comfort and an almost surreal beauty. As he sings on "Banjo," his version of a country-folk tune, "My duty is to know."
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas"
Cheese on Toast by Andrew Tidball, February 10, 2012
If there is a God and if he released an album, you wouldn't review it; you'd just enjoy it. It'd be like, giving that amazing sunset last night a Pitchfork rating. It's just, not right. So, what if Leonard Cohen releases his 12th studio album with Columbia Records aged 77? Well Pitchfork gives it 7.4, obviously. And it's just, not right.
There's an eerie yet calming feeling that overcomes me every time I listen to Old Ideas that I am truly listening to his parting words - like he's making peace with himself and sharing it with us. He's wry, sage, weathered, and wise. When I am 77 I hope to be half the man that Leonard Cohen is.
Wonderfully, Cohen manages to balance the gravity of a thousand suns in the depth of his spoken/song baritone with the levity of perspective that it's the simplest of things that actually really matter. If, listening to this record one can gain just an ounce of his apparent wisdom than that's enough to make it totally and utterly worthwhile.
Old Ideas will make you simultaneously sorrowful and joyous. It's a sunset of a record and you just don't give that a rating out of ten.
"Music Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
CBC (Canada) by Bob Mersereau, February 10, 2012
When Leonard Cohen opened his world tour here in Fredericton at The Playhouse on May 11, 2008, it was a glorious event. While it could have been simply a last love-in for a senior taking a farewell jaunt, the wiley veteran proved he had the chops to continue, and had lost none of his abilty to captivate. What should have been a retirement trip was in fact the start of a new phase, one that would see him on the road for two years, and most surprisingly, offering new tunes on stage, and the promise of another album.
That was welcome news, but not entirely exciting. After all, his most recent releases, after the later-period thrills of I'm Your Man and The Future, were the underwhelming Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004). He made nods to them on the tour, but really his reputation for a new generation was anchored in legend, and the unexpected revival of Hallelujah. The idea of a new, and stunning Cohen album seemed chancy at best. Of course, I never thought he'd start a world tour in Fredericton, either, let alone play possibly the greatest concert event I've ever witnessed, when he was 73. Now he's 77.
Old Ideas is not only better than I had expected, it is a significant work by a vibrant artist, obviously bouyed by his recent success. Everything you want from Cohen is here, plus a few surprises. There are songs of the highest lyrical quality, his hallmark since the start of his music career. With his experience, he learned long ago that economy is more important than verbiage, and the search for the perfect word and phrase would serve him better than haste. Cohen's wit is present as well, playing off his image, as he did with I'm Your Man. The disc opens with Going Home, and the very first lines we hear are "I love to speak with Leonard/He's a sportsman and a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard/Living in a suit." It's a fascinating number that seems to be about the difference between the public and on-stage Cohen and who he feels he really is: "He wants to write a love song/An anthem of forgiving/A manual for living with defeat."
Defeat? Love is defeat? Crap. He's probably right, and that little zinger is just tossed off in the midst of one number. As usual, love in all its agony and ecstasy is a major theme here, even after the fact, on Anyhow, where our boy tries to lesson a guilty conscious: "Have mercy on me baby/After all I did confess/Even though you have to hate me/Could you hate me less?" It's lines like these that draw us into the songs, and the album is full of them.
His other main song source, again something that has remained constant, is religion, combining these classic images with personal writing. In Show Me The Place (which features a welcome return of vocalist Jennifer Warnes), the images are from the Resurrection, the singer asking "help me roll away the stone", but it's another relationship song, our man willing to suffer for the love of one just as Jesus did for the love of all. Only L.C. could pull that lyric off.
Part of the success of that, and a couple of other songs, comes from the production and arrangements, which cast these songs closer to hymns than Cohen has ever come. Credit the various producers and arrangers here, because the disc features a varied bunch of styles and collaborations, and this is more good news. Both Ten New Songs and Dear Heather felt like Cohen was leaning too heavily on both Sharon Robinson and Anjani Thomas, and while both return here, they are part of the team, with Cohen seeming more in control of the overall plan, and more interested as well. Patrick Leonard and Ed Sanders are most prominant, but it always feels like Cohen's song. Even the co-writing credits are way down, Cohen solely responsible for five of the ten tracks.
One last and pleasant surprise comes at the start of the second half of the album. Until then, Old Ideas had sounded like the usual modern Cohen disc, spare but precise instrumentation, not as synth-heavy perhaps, very good for sure. But on Crazy To Love You, we get the return of the original Leonard, as the song features the nylon-string guitar with which his early hits are associated. It's Cohen's nod to his younger self, and might even be in answer to his son Adam, who recently released his own disc of nylon stringed tunes, saying he'd been bugging the old man to return to that sound for years. It is welcome, and as usual wise. Just a taste, not a return, that's not growth.
Listening through, the biggest surprise is what Cohen didn't do on this disc. He didn't go back, he moved forward, and strongly. He got better, like any artist wants, and even though his age is there, it's not the topic, not the excuse, not really considered. Unlike contemporaries Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, there are no ruminations on what things have changed. For Cohen, nothing really has in his work, and the work is all-important, which is why he "love(s) to speak with Leonard". He's our man, skipping into the future.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas (Columbia 2012.)"
Pot Lista (Croatia) by Marin Mihalj, February 6, 2012
Jedna je to od onih nedjelja. Iako sam završio srednju školu još davno, sjecam se nervoza koje je znala prouzrociti predškolska nedjelja. Sad kad sam odrastao i citav svijet shvatio, kad je sve glupo i jednostavno, nedjelje me ne cine nervoznim. A, eto, danas sam nervozan. Niti me straši sutrašnji radni dan, niti posao koji radim, a sigurno me ne straši to što moram napisati recenziju za novi album Leonarda Cohena. Naime, ako sam dobro shvatio Draza, uz moju recenziju, bit ce ih još tri. Najmanje. Uostalom, moja recenzija na pot listi je volonterska. Ni u dzep, ni iz dzepa. Radim to jer volim pisati. Jer, kako shvatih u proteklih nekoliko mjeseci, katkad znam napisati nešto cega se necu stiditi dan poslije. No, opet ponavljam, nervozan sam. I ne znam što s tom nervozom.
Sjetno slušajuci jednu Cohenovu stariju skladbu, onu o ljubavnom trokutu (mada ja imam drugacije objašnjenje i dozivljaj iste), uvijek zamislim gospodina Cohena kako sjedi kraj kamina, u tu kasnu noc ili rano jutro posljednjeg dana prosinca, okruzen papirima i bocama alkohola dok vani pada snijeg. Cudan je taj snijeg. U Mostaru gotovo nikad ne pada, ali je u proteklih nekoliko dana pocastio isti grad najvecim padalinama snijega koje ja pamtim, a pamtim dobrih dvadesetak godina svog zivota ovdje. Grad je u potpunom rasulu, i više nego obicno. Ljudi su odlucili odjebati crkve i bogomolju, uzeli lopate u svoje ruke i pokušavaju iskopati vlastite automobile, prokopati cestu ne bi li danas/sutra mogli otici negdje. Do prodajnih centara, bolnica, sutra i svog posla. Jer, jedno je sigurno - gazda ne prašta.
A ja, lijena pickica, zimogrozac, zabarikadiran u svoju malenu sobu, slušam Cohena i svako malo protrljavam šake jer se smrznu i zgrce od izlozenosti studeni koja se uvukla u sobu i tipkanja. Ustanem od radnog stola, pogledavam kroz prozor i promatram sunce koje se danas pojavilo. U pozadini je Cohen. Tiho šapuce svojim grubim glasom, govori mi kako i u 78. godini zivota i dalje postoji ljubav i ceznja, strast i zal. Postoji sve. I to me malo smiruje. Duga je povijest izmedu mene i Lea. Ne sjecam se kako sam došao do njega. Mozda preko Buckleya. Stat cu tu, došao sam do njega preko Buckleya. Bolje da se ne pitam kako sam došao do Buckleya jer cu izgubiti ovu jedinu nit za koju se cvrsto ali jedva drzim.
Prisjecam se prve knjige o njemu koju sam procitao. Preciznije, nije to bila knjiga o njemu, bila je to knjiga njegovih, na naš jezik prevedenih, skladbi. Poklonila ju mi je jedna Hercegovka. Bivša. Napisao ju je jedan Hercegovac, predmnijevam. Govorio je o tomu kako je tijekom ratnih 90-ih Cohen bio jedini izlaz. Ne znam gdje i otkud, ali je bio izlaz. Kao što je izlaz meni. I opet ne znam gdje. Prošlo je osam godina od njegovog posljednjeg albuma. Ni ovaj ne bi bio tu da Leonard nije vjerovao pogrešnoj osobi. Pogrešnoj zeni. Uzela mu je svu uštedevinu, prica kaze. Zato je Leonard, star i naoko vitalan, odlucio krenuti na ovu posljednju turneju. Da si osigura miran kraj. Mozda je to samo izgovor da još jednom vidi svijet i posjeti mjesta koja su ga nekoc nadahnula na velike stvari. Da još jednom osjeti da je ziv.
Bio je tu, u Zagrebu. Relativno blizu. Bio bih i ja. Ali nisam. Sprijecila me slomljena noga. Nisam citao izvještaje s koncerta. Osjecao sam neku vrstu bijesa jer nisam nazocio dogadaju. Nisam ga vidio uzivo. Onda sam došao do zakljucka kako je tako mozda i bolje jer je Leonard Cohen, onaj kojeg vidim u svojim mislima dok slušam njegove albume, prestao stariti još tamo 1988. godine kad je izašao "I'm Your Man", njegov posljednji pravi album (do ovoga). Ja ga još vidim kao zamišljenog poetu, dzentlmena i bonvivana koji sjedi za svojom pisacom mašinom. Na Hydri je. Provodi sate i sate tipkajuci price i pjesme, a društvo mu, s vremena na vrijeme, pravi Marianne Ihlen, najljepša zena koju je autor ikada vidio u svom dugom i suštinski dogadajnom zivotu.
Dobri stari Leonard spremio je novi album i, dovraga, dobar je.
Zapravo, "Old Ideas" je i više nego dobar. Cohen kombinira svoju posvecenost matematickoj preciznosti u dirljivim i duhovitim zivotnim tekstovima te zvuk gitara, orgulja, baseva i pozadinskih vokala koji svako toliko podsjecaju na jedan od perioda njegove duge i gloriozne karijere. Je li to ovih deset kvalitetom ujednacenih pjesama autor spremio za kraj, za konacni oproštaj? Mozda. No, kad ga cujem ovako motiviranog i lucidnog, pozelim mu još stotinu godina zivota ili stotinu zivota za barem tri nova albuma (gospodin je perfekcionist koji voli uzeti vrijeme izmedu dva albuma i odugovlaciti, a ako pak ne voli - odugovlaci, bo'me) i nekoliko koncertnih turneja. Neka opet dode u Zagreb. Kvragu, neka dode i u Mostar, ali ja njegovom koncertu necu nazociti. Neka ga netko drugi demistificira ako moze i ako zeli.
"Old Ideas" otvara skladba "Going Home" koja pokazuje ustrajnost u zvukovnom minimalizmu te prikazivanju sebe kao simpaticnog ljubavnika i pjesnika koji je uvijek onaj koji gubi. On je prelijepi gubitnik. Kao i uvijek. Osloboden okova. Pomiren sa sudbinom. Onakav je kakvim ga mi dozivljavamo: "He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit". Na prvu skladbu se naslanja najduza pjesma na albumu, "Amen", tj. nacin na koji Cohen ozivljava i dozivljava country glazbu. Necujna gitara u pozadini, dok su u prvi plan izvuceni on i back vokali. Sve što zeli sada, kad je kraj tako blizu, je da mu ona kaze nešto jednostavno isrcu drago: "Tell me that you love me then/Amen".
Ako je tko gledao Fleischerovo znanstveno-fantasticno remek-djelo "Soylent Green", sigurno se sjeca twista, ali i filmskog kraja cuvenog Edward G. Robinsona koji je netom prije snimanja te scene priznao svom dobrom prijateljuCharlton Hestonu kako zbilja umire. Hestonove suze su autenticne, a montaza slika, zvuka prirode i svega što vidimo u sceni dok Robinson lezi u svom posljednjem krevetu slama srce. Samo nedostaje "Show Me The Place ", treca pjesma s ovog albuma, pjesma o spuštanju zastora, prigodna pjesma. Jedna od onih stvari s albuma koja najviše mami osmijeh na lice je "Darkness" gdje Cohen vrši derivaciju samog sebe: negdje u daljini cuje se onaj Cohenov poznati zahvat na gitari (patentiran na pjesmi "Avalanche", ako se ne varam). To nije sve jer vecim dijelom pjesme mozemo zamisliti Cohena sa ironicnim smješkom dok izgovara njemu svojstvene zezalice upucene muško-zenskim odnosima poput: "I caught the darkness drinking from your cup/I said is this contagious / You said just drink it up".
Najbolje dvije skladbe na albumu, po mom skromnom sudu, nalaze se negdje u sredini: "Anyhow" i "Crazy To Love You". Na prvoj Cohen najmanje pjeva i najviše recitira. Kao da sjedi u zamracenom i zadimljenom baru, okruzen polupijanim propalicama u vjecnoj potrazi za odgovorima u dnu caše, Cohen se obraca svojoj zeni. Tamo negdje. On zna, ona zna. Svi znaju da je gotovo. Ali opet, mora li biti gotovo? Bilo bi glupo citirati cijelu pjesmu, ali svaka strofa je zbilja mali dragulj koji tocno prikazuje kako se muškarac ili zena osjecaju kad znaju da je kraj, ali jedno od njih opet zeli natrag jer je psiho-fizicka ovisnost toliko jaka. Ljubav je droga. Ovo-ono. "I know you have to hate me/but could you hate me less". "Crazy To Love You" je ništa lošija od prethodne. Osim što neodoljivo podsjeca na "Take This Longing", raspolaze promišljenim rijecima o pogrešnoj zeni. O pogrešnim zenama Cohen štošta zna, pa kad kaze: "I had to go crazy to love you / Had to let everything fall/Had to be people I hated/Had to be no one at all", što drugo nego da mu vjerujemo.
Moraš biti cudan svat da ne voliš Cohena. Ako se nešto moze izvuci iz svega ovoga, to je (1) da ja nemam pojma o cemu pišem, (2) da Cohen ima te (3) da ne vrijedi vjerovati zeni/muškarcu koja/i ne voli matorog zavodnika. I, ako zajebeš stvari, (4) da ostaneš dzentlmen.
Nedjelja još traje, ali je Cohen istjerao demona nervoze.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas (Columbia 2012.)"
Pot Lista (Croatia) by Marin Mihalj, February 6, 2012
This is one of those weeks. Although I graduated from high school a long time ago, I remember the nervousness that she knew cause preschool Sunday. Now when I grew up and realized the whole world, when all is stupid and simple, Sundays do not make me nervous. And, behold, today I am nervous. Nor am I afraid tomorrow's work day or work that I do, and certainly am not afraid that I have to write a review for the new albumby Leonard Cohen. In fact, if I understood I prefer with my review, there will be three more. At least. Anyway, my review of the pot to the list is voluntary. Not even in your pocket, or out of pocket. I do it because I love to write. Because, as I realized over the past few months, sometimes I write something I will not shy about the day after. But, I repeat, I am nervous. I do not know what to do with the anxiety.
Wistfully listening to the older one Cohen song, one about a love triangle (although I have a different explanation, and experience the same), always think of Mr. Cohen as he sits by the fireplace, in the late night or early morning on the last day of December, surrounded by papers and bottles of alcohol while falling out snow. Strange is the snow. In Mostar almost never falling, but in the past couple of days treated the same city the highest rainfall of snow that I remember, I remember a good twenty years of his life here. The city is in complete disarray, and more than usual. People have decided to fuck off and worship of the church, took shovels in their hands and trying to dig their own cars, the road would not dig it today / tomorrow to go somewhere. By shopping centers, hospitals, and their job tomorrow. Because one thing is certain - the boss is not forgiving.
And I, lazy pussy, zimogrozac, barricaded in his small room, listening to Cohen and every bit as protrljavam hands freeze and curl with exposure in November, which is encased in a room and typing. Get up from my desk, I look out the window and watching the sun which appeared today. In the background is a Cohen. Quiet whispers his rough voice, telling me how in the 78th age there is still love and longing, passion and sorrow. There is increasing. And it calms me a bit. There is a long history between me and Leo. I do not remember how I came up to him. Maybe over Buckley. I will stand here, I came to him over Buckley. Better not to ask how I came to Buckley because I will lose this single thread which is solid but hardly hold.
I remember the first book of his that I read. Specifically, it was not a book about him, it was his books, translated into our language, songs. It gave me a Herzegovinian. The former. It was written by a Herzegovinian, I suppose. He talked about how during the war by 90-Cohen was the only way out. I do not know where and why, but he was out. As you exit the menu. Again, I do not know where. It's been eight years since his last album. Even this would not be there to Leonard did not trust the wrong person. The wrong woman. She took him all the savings, the story says. So Leonard, old and seemingly vital, he decided to go on this last tour. To secure a peaceful end. Maybe it's just an excuse to once again see the world and visit places that were once inspired him to great things. To once again feel that he was alive.
He was here in Zagreb. The relatively close. I would too. But I did not. Broken leg prevented me. I read the reports from the concert. I felt a kind of anger because I did not attend the event. I saw him live. Then I came to the conclusion that it may be better because it was Leonard Cohen, is that I see in my mind while listening to his records, there has ceased to age 1988th year when it came out "I'm Your Man", his last real album (to this). I still see him as an imaginary poet, bon vivant and gentleman who sits in his typewriter. The Hydra is. Spending hours typing stories and poems, and his company, from time to time, the real Marianne Ihlen, the beautiful woman whom the author had ever seen in my long life and substantial Event.
Good old Leonard prepared a new album, and hell, good.
In fact, "Old Ideas" is more than good. Cohen combines mathematical precision of its commitment to life touching and witty lyrics and guitar sounds, organ, bass and background vocals that every now reminiscent of a period of his long and glorious career. Is it the quality of these ten songs by uniformed saved for the end, the final farewell? Maybe. But when you hear such a motivated and lucid, I wish him a hundred or a hundred years of life for at least three new albums (The Lord is a perfectionist who likes to take time between albums and delay, and if you do not like - stalling, bo'me) and several concert tours. Some came back to Zagreb. Damn it, let him come in Mostar, but I will not attend his concert. Let someone else if you can demystify and if you want.
"Old Ideas" opens the song "Going Home" which shows the persistence of sound and minimalism, and presenting himself as a likeable lover and poet who was always the one who loses. He is a beautiful loser. As always. Freed from bondage.Resigned. Is sort of what we experience it: "He's a sportsman and a Shepherd / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit." The first piece draws the longest song on the album, "Amen", ie the way in which Cohen revives and sees country music. Silent guitar in the background while the foreground drawn on the back vocals. All I want now, when the end is so close, that she said something to him just glad ISRC: "Tell me that you love me then / Amen."
If anyone watched Fleischer sci-fi masterpiece "Soylent Green", surely remembers the Twist, but the end of the famous film and Edward G. Robinson, who recently confessed to shooting the scene, his good friend Charlton Heston as really dying. Heston tears were genuine, and editing images, sound and nature of what we see in the scene, while Robinson is in his last bed heartbreaking. Just missing the "Show Me The Place," the third song on this album, the lower the blinds, occasional song. One of those things on the album that most enticing smile on the face of the "Darkness" where Cohen performs derivation itself: somewhere in the distance he heard Cohen's famous grip on the guitar (patent pending on the song "Avalanche", if I am not mistaken). It's not all because most of the songs we imagine Cohen with ironic smile as he recites his inherent zezalice addressed male-female relationships, such as: "I caught the darkness drinking from your cup / I said is this contagious / You said just drink it up."
The best two tracks on the album, in my humble opinion, there are somewhere in the middle: "Anyhow," and "This Crazy Love You in". At least the first Cohen sings and recites the most. As if sitting in a darkened and smoky bar, surrounded by half drunk bum in the eternal quest for answers in the bottom of the glass, Cohen speaks to his wife. There somewhere. He knows, she knows. Everyone knows it's over. But again, you must be over? It would be foolish to quote the entire song, but each verse is really a little gem that shows exactly how a man or woman feel when they know that's the end, but one of them wants to turn back because of the psychological and physical dependence is so strong. Love is a drug. This-what. "I know you have to hate me / but could you hate me less." "Crazy To Love You" is nothing worse than the previous one. Besides being irresistibly reminiscent of "Take This Longing" has thoughtful words on the wrong woman. On the wrong women, Cohen knows a lot, so when he says: "I had to go crazy to love you / Had to let everything fall / Had to be people I hated / Had to be no one at all," what else than to believe him.
You must be a strange feller you do not like Cohen. If something can be drawn from all this, it is (1) that I have no idea what I write, (2) that Cohen has and (3) not believe that a woman / man to / and does not like old Pasa seducer. And, if you screw up things, (4) to remain a gentleman.
Sunday is still going on, but he'd drive out the demon of nervousness.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"'Old Ideas' di Leonard Cohen. La recensione"
Mentelocale (Italy) by Andrea Baroni, February 9, 2012
A 74 anni l'artista canadese si rimette in gioco. Un album con vecchie idee sempre attuali. Capace di cantare l'amore con la forza di un grande romanzo
«Mi piace parlare con Leonard. È uno sportivo ed una guida. E'un pigro bastardo vestito elegante. Ma dice quello che gli suggerisco, anche se controvoglia: non può rifiutare».
Scherza con se stesso Leonard Cohen all'inizio di Old ideas il nuovo lavoro da poco pubblicato per la Columbia.
Vecchie idee, ma sempre attuali, quelle con cui l'autore canadese si ripropone a distanza da sette anni dal più recente lavoro Dear Heather: l'amore, il senso di sconfitta, il rimpianto, raccontati con ironia e sensibilità da vero poeta.
Il lavoro pare stia riscuotendo inaspettato e vasto successo in vari paesi, Italia inclusa, sull'onda di un generale movimento di riscoperta seguito ai concerti di successo degli ultimi due anni. Si legge in giro che la triste vicenda di qualche anno fa, quando la sua manager fu accusata di avergli sottratto un patrimonio di quasi cinque milioni di dollari, abbia rappresentato la causa scatenante di questa nuova fase della ormai lunga carriera di Cohen, costretto a rimettersi in tour ed atornare negli studi di registrazione a 74 anni, dopo un periodo di isolamento in monastero, per necessità vitali.
Tre anni dopo, con Old ideas, siamo dalle parti del meglio della sua arte. Più che cantare Cohen declama i suoi versi con voce pacata e profonda, su un tappeto strumentale perfettamente adeguato ale atmosfere evocate dalle parole: un paio di blues, (Darkness e Banjo), i cori femminili di Jennifer Warnes e Sharon Robinson a sostenere la struttura dei pezzi, svolazzi di organo hammond, ed una indolente armonica (Lullaby) su ritmi sempre pacati.
Ma ci sono alcuni momenti, nel percorso di queste canzoni, alcunesvolte nella narrazione che sono in grado di regalare il famoso brivido nella schiena. E c'è un pezzo, Show me the place, che racconta la schiavitù dell'amore con la forza espressiva di un grande romanzo.
"'Old Ideas' by Leonard Cohen. The Review"
Mentelocale (Italy) by Andrea Baroni, February 9, 2012
At 74 years, Canadian artist takes another. A timeless album with old ideas. Able to sing the love with the force of a great novel
"I like to talk to Leonard. It is a sport and a guide. It is a lazy bastard suit. But he says what I suggest, even if reluctantly: he can not refuse."
Jokes with himself Leonard Cohen at the beginning of Old ideas on new work just published by Columbia. Old ideas, but always present, those with which the Canadian author recurs at a distance of seven years from the most recent work Dear Heather: love, a sense of loss, regret, told with humor and sensitivity as a true poet.
Work apparently is gaining wide and unexpected success in various countries, Italy included, in the wake of a general movement of rediscovery Following successful concerts of the last two years. We read about the sad story of a few years ago, when his manager was accused of having stolen a fortune of nearly five million dollars, has been the root cause of this new phase of the now long career, Cohen was forced to recover on tour and back in the recording studio at 74, after a period of seclusion in a monastery, for the vital necessities.
Three years later, Old ideas, we are the best parts of his art. More than singing Cohen recites his lines in a quiet voice and deep, on a carpet perfectly fine ale instrumental atmospheres conjured by the words: a couple of blues, (Darkness and Banjo), female backing vocals by Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson to support the structure parts, Hammond organ flourishes, and a lazy harmonica (Lullaby) of more sedate pace. But there are some moments in the course of these songs, some performedin the narrative that are able to give the famous thrill in the back. And there's a song, Show me the place, which tells the bondage of love with the expressive power of a great novel.
Thanks to Jarkko and Andrea for supplying this article.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Old ideas, la poesia di Leonard Cohen si avvicina a Dio"
Tempi (Italy) by Carlo Candiani, February 10, 2012
Il cantautore canadese incide un album emozionante, lento e intimo. Un testamento spirituale e musicale dove la voce profonda scivola sicura sulle note di una piccola ensamble di fiati, violini e chitarre
è dal 1968 che, tra eccessi (ah, le donne!) e domande esistenziali, Leonard Cohen racconta con le sue morbide ballate, con voce trascinata e grave, in un mood che ondeggia tra spiritual e blues, la quotidianità di un uomo diviso tra musica, letteratura e pittura. La sua voce, già da giovane, rimanda all'essenzialità del crooner che ha abbandonato i locali fumosi e l'orchestrina swing, valorizzando più i silenzi che le trame strumentali per poter assecondare la sua vena poetica intrisa di mare, di donne e di Dio. è così che sono nati capolavori come Suzanne, Bird on wire, Hallelujah, Everybody Knows, gemme musicali così splendenti da diventare punti di riferimento per generazioni di artisti tra i più disparati: Joe Cocker, Bono Vox, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley e tanti altri ancora, come i nostri Francesco De Gregori e Fabrizio De Andrè. Dopo la pubblicazione di dischi fondamentali e dopo un lungo esilio meditativo in un convento di monaci zen, da qualche anno Cohen, alla veneranda età di settantotto anni, è impegnato in tour mondiale lunghissimo, violentando la sua stessa indole riservata e poco propensa al confronto col pubblico pagante. Questo impegno mondiale non gli ha vietato di scrivere nuovi brani per un album dal titolo eloquente: Old Ideas, nuova raccolta di inediti.
Dedicato a chi sta guardando la propria vita, Old Ideas è un album affascinante, lento e intimo, come forse nessuno mai: una decina di brani cantati con una voce sempre più profonda, cosciente del tempo passato e di quello che il destino gli concederà ancora di vivere, sorretta da una band acustica che si insinua con un tappeto sonoro fatto di banjo, tastiere hammond, una piccola ensamble di fiati, violini e chitarre e un sempre presente terzetto femminile che fa da contrappeso all'indolenza canora del grande artista. Mentre si dipana l'atmosfera notturna e meditativa tra gospel, citazioni western, leggeri swing e dondolanti ninne nanne, ci accorgiamo che forse questo lavoro è un punto di non ritorno nella produzione di Cohen: «So che i miei giorni sono pochi» canta in Darkness, «Dimmi ancora una volta quando ho visto attraverso l'orrore, dimmelo di nuovo più e più volte, dimmi che mi ami» è l'invocazione di Amen, «Sentiamo nei cieli l'inno penitenziale, si aprono le porte della misericordia e viene la guarigione dello spirito e del corpo» è la domanda di salvezza in Come Healing e l'ultima definitiva sfida a Qualcosa che ci trascende: «Fammi vedere il posto dove vuoi che il tuo schiavo vada, aiutami a far rotolare il masso che non ho dimenticato» e in Show me the Place, c'è tutto, la vita, la morte e la risurrezione.
"Old ideas, the poetry of Leonard Cohen comes to God"
Tempi (Italy) by Carlo Candiani, February 10, 2012
The Canadian singer-songwriter recorded an album exciting, slow and intimate. A testament to the spiritual and musical where the deep voice glides safely to the tune of a small ensemble of wind instruments, violins and guitars
It is from 1968 which, among excesses (ah, the women!) And existential questions, Leonard Cohen tells with his soft ballads, his voice serious and driven, in a mood that swings between spirituals and blues, the daily life of a man torn between music, literature and painting. Her voice, even as a young, refers to the essentiality of the crooner who has abandoned the premises and smoky dance band swing, emphasizing more the instrumental silences that the plots in order to indulge his poetic soaked sea, and women of God. Thus were born such masterpieces as Suzanne, Bird on Wire, Hallelujah, Everybody Knows, musical gems so bright as to become points of reference for generations of artists disparate: Joe Cocker, Bono, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley and many others, like our Francesco De Gregori and Fabrizio De Andrè. After the publication of key records and after a long exile in a monastery of contemplative monks zen, Cohen some years, at the ripe age of seventy-eight years, engaged in lengthy world tour, violating his own nature, reserved and disinclined to confrontation with paying public. This worldwide effort did not preclude him to write new songs for an album title says it all: Old Ideas, new collection of unpublished works.
Dedicated to those who are watching their lives, Old Ideas is a fascinating album, slow and intimate, as perhaps no one ever: ten songs sung in a voice deeper, conscious of the past and what the destiny grant him still to live, supported by an acoustic band that sneaks with a carpet of sound made banjo, keyboards, Hammond, a small ensemble of wind instruments, violins and guitars, and an ever-present female trio singing is counterbalanced by the indolence of the great artist. As he unravels the atmosphere between nocturnal and meditative gospel, Western quotes, light swing and swaying lullabies, we realize that maybe this job is a point of no return in the production of Cohen: "I know that my days are few" sings Darkness, "Tell me again when I saw the horrors, tell me again and again, tell me you love me" is the invocation of Amen, "We hear in heaven the hymn of repentance, opens the gates of mercy and is the healing of mind and body" is the question of salvation in How Healing and the last final challenge to something that transcends us: "Let me see the place where you want your slave go, help me to roll the boulder I have not forgotten," and show me the Place, there is everything, life, death and resurrection.
Thanks to Jarkko and Andrea for supplying this article.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Cohen, «Old Ideas» il bilancio del poeta"
Bresciaoggi (Italy), February 9, 2012
«Non ho futuro, so che i miei giorni sono pochi, il presente non è poi così piacevole, solo un mucchio di cose da fare». Lo citeranno in molti, questo verso tratto da «The Darkness», parlando del nuovo album di Leonard Cohen: perché è lì che in poche, fulminanti parole, sembra condensarsi il senso di questo dodicesimo capitolo in studio della sua discografia. Un disco che, ascoltato alla luce dei 77 anni compiuti lo scorso settembre dall'artista canadese, finisce inevitabilmente per assumere la fisionomia di un bilancio struggente ed amaro, di quelli che prima o poi toccano a tutti. Cohen non era del resto certamente il tipo da sottrarsi alla resa dei conti: ed infatti eccolo qui, reduce dal periodo forse più commercialmente positivo della sua carriera, a definirsi poco più di un «pigro bastardo» («Going home»), a confessare di aver amato «come uno schiavo» («Show me the place»), ad annunciare di aver ormai contratto la malattia dell'«oscurità». E' vero, è in fondo il solito Leonard: quella voce unica, quel sound senza pari, quella saggezza... Eppure da tempo non pareva così autentico ed indispensabile. (Columbia) Che resterà dopo il gossip, le insinuazioni, le visualizzazioni record su Youtube e tutto il ciarpame mediatico che circonda i fenomeni gonfiati ad arte? Resterà, per una volta, un disco di belle canzoni. Niente di più semplice. Perché Lana Del Rey, di cui a questo punto chiunque dovrebbe sapere qualunque cosa, ha avuto l'accortezza ed il buon gusto di sottrarsi ad un effetto manipolatorio e di mandare in circolo un disco sottile ma dal fascino deciso. Una collezione di canzoni molto ben scritte, articolate su un vischioso magma pop fitto di rimandi hollywoodiani e soffici ritmiche hip-hop, patinato da una attraente glassa di modernità e sigillato da un intrigante carisma. (Universal) I newyorchesi Nada Surf stanno da sempre nel girone delle band che non tradiscono: un gruppo che rappresenta una certezza, perlomeno per tutti coloro che il proprio rock lo amano declinato in squisite armonizzazioni sixties con occasionali svisate di elettricità power-pop anni '70. Questo del resto il sound che Matthew Caws e soci perseguono da 15 anni, e che in questo nuovo album giunge ad un ulteriore stadio di rifinitura e convincente maturità. Il punto di partenza rimane il beat di Beatles e Byrds, mediato da una sensibilità college-rock tutta americana che è in fondo la specialità della ditta Nada Surf, di nuovo in gran forma per dieci brillanti canzoni guitar-pop.
"Cohen, 'Old Ideas' the budget of the poet"
Bresciaoggi (Italy), February 9, 2012
"I have no future, I know that my days are few, this is not so nice, just a bunch of things to do." I cite many, this line from "The Darkness", talking about the new album of Leonard Cohen: Why is there that in a few, withering words, seems to condense the meaning of this twelfth chapter of his studio recordings. An album that, heard in the light of 77 years old last September Canadian artist, inevitably take on the appearance of a budget poignant and bitter, than those that eventually affect everyone. Cohen was not the type to rest certainly escape the reckoning: and here he is in fact, reduce the period perhaps the most commercially successful of his career, to be called little more than a "lazy bastard" ("Going home"), to confess that he loved "like a slave" ("Show me the place"), to announce that they have already contracted the disease of "blackness". It's true, it's basically the usual Leonard: that unique voice, that sound without peer, that wisdom? Yet for some time did not seem so real and essential. (Columbia) What will remain after the gossip, innuendo, views on Youtube and record all the junk the media phenomenon surrounding the inflated art? Will, for once, a disc of beautiful songs. Nothing could be easier. Because Lana Del Rey, which at this point everyone should know everything, had the foresight and the good taste to avoid a manipulative effect and not circulate a thin disk, but decided charm. A collection of songs very well written, articulated through a viscous magma pop full of references to Hollywood and soft rhythmic hip-hop, from a bright glossy glaze of modernity and sealed with an intriguing charisma. (Universal) Nada Surf New Yorkers are always in the group of bands that do not betray: a group that is a certainty, at least for those who like their rock declined in the sixties with exquisite harmonies occasional svisate electricity power-pop years' 70. The rest of the sound that Matthew Caws and company serve for 15 years, and that in this new album come to another stage of finishing and convincing maturity. The starting point is the beat of the Beatles and Byrds, mediated by a feeling that all-American college-rock is at the bottom of the specialty of the company Nada Surf, again in great shape for ten brilliant guitar-pop songs.
Thanks to Jarkko and Andrea for supplying this article.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Il Cibicida (Italy) by Nicola Corsaro, February 4, 2012
Probabilmente Leonard Cohen vede sé stesso esattamente come si descrive in Going Home, poesia (passatemi il termine, non riuscirò a parlare di "pezzi", né di "canzoni", non mi sembrerebbe adeguato) che apre questa raccolta, la prima in otto anni, la dodicesima in tutto da quel devastante "Songs Of Leonard Cohen" che vide la luce nel 1967. Si vede come un "lazy bastard living in a suit", un pigro bastardo che vive dentro un abito; ma quando apre bocca, questo pigro bastardo, il mondo ferma il suo compulsivo, noioso, ripetitivo roteare per ascoltare, chinando spontaneamente il capo indietro e chiudendo lentamente gli occhi. Nuove storie di amore, morte, sesso, fede. Accompagnato da un coro quasi gospel e da arrangiamenti tanto scarni quanto piacevoli, il pigro bastardo incede piacevolmente nel crooning recitativo della sua caldissima voce profonda che mai si azzarda a cantare: del resto l'ha sempre detto che le sue non sono canzoni, ma poesie prestate alla musica. E sarebbe profondamente limitativo chiamare qualcosa come Anyhow "canzone", ("Abbi pietà di me, piccola / alla fine ho confessato / anche se devi odiarmi / non potresti odiarmi meno?"), ed è impossibile scindere la potenza di queste parole dal concetto di poesia: il flamenco appena accennato dell'intro di Darkness, che si trasforma in un caldo blues quasi lo si dimentica, nonostante la bellezza, ma le dure parole che riserva a sé stesso ed alla sua vita, quelle non si riescono a dimenticare sin dal primo istante nel quale toccano delicatamente i vostri padiglioni auricolari: "Non ho futuro / e so che mi rimangono pochi giorni / non è che il presente sia così piacevole / solo un sacco di roba da fare / pensavo che mi sarebbe bastato il passato / ma l'oscurità è arrivata anche lì". Scritto in parte in collaborazione con Patrick Leonard (il furbastro al quale si devono, tra le altre cose, alcune hit della Madonna anni '80 come "La Isla Bonita" e "Like A Prayer"), i quaranta minuti di Old Ideas valgono bene l'attesa di otto anni; tra blues scarni, gospel e folk, le dieci poesie splendidamente recitate da Cohen necessitano di essere seguite in ogni passaggio, possibilmente con il testo davanti agli occhi. Per una volta, distogliere l'attenzione dalle cianfrusaglie che vi portate appresso e volgerla alla poesia potrebbe essere una "old idea" niente male.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Il Cibicida (Italy) by Nicola Corsaro, February 4, 2012
Probably Leonard Cohen sees himself exactly as described in Going Home, poetry (pass the word, I can not speak of "parts" or the "songs", it would seem appropriate to me) that opens this collection, the first in eight years, throughout the twelfth from the devastating "Songs Of Leonard Cohen" who was born in 1967. He sees it as a "lazy bastard living in a suit," a lazy bastard who lives in a dress, but when he opens his mouth, this lazy bastard, the world stops his compulsive, boring, repetitive swing to listen, bowing his head back spontaneously and closing his eyes slowly. New stories of love, death, sex, faith. Accompanied by a chorus and gospel arrangements so skinny though pleasant, the lazy bastard he walks nicely in its hot recitative crooning voice that never dares to sing the rest has always said that his songs are not, but poetry provided the music. It would be profoundly limiting to call something like Anyhow "song" ("Have mercy on me, baby / I finally confessed / even if you hate me / not you hate me less?"), and it is impossible to separate the power of these words from the concept of poetry: the flamenco just mentioned of the introduction of Darkness, which transforms into a warm blues almost forgotten, despite the beauty, but the harsh words he reserves to himself and his life, those you can not forget from the first moment in which lightly touching your ears: "I have no future, / and I know I have left a few days / is not that this is so nice / just a lot of stuff to do / I thought that I just needed the past / but the darkness came there too". Written partly in collaboration with Patrick Leonard (the scoundrel to whom we owe, among other things, some of Madonna's hit '80s as "La Isla Bonita" and "Like A Prayer"), the forty minutes of Old Ideas are worth the waiting eight years between lean blues, gospel and folk, the ten poems beautifully recited by Cohen need to be followed in each step, possibly with the text before your eyes. For once, draw attention away from the junk you carry with you and turn it to the poem could be an "old idea" not bad.
Thanks to Jarkko and Andrea for supplying this article.
"Old King Cohen"
Hindustan Times by Indrajit Hazra, February 11, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
For those still engaged in that old debate about whether a great song is made by words riding the music or the music straddling the words, Leonard Cohen has always provided a straightforward answer at least for his own songs: the words are paramount, coming alive when bathed in the light of his trademark soft, wet music. Cohen closes the old debate yet again in Old Ideas, his new album and, to my ears, his finest since his 1984 record, Various Positions.
Cohen starts the proceedings with 'Going home', which he wrote as a poem in The New Yorker magazine. In its avatar as a song, it turns into an almost gospel-infused sigh about living with a character called Leonard Cohen: "I love to speak with Leonard/ He's a sportsman and a shepherd/ He's a lazy bastard/ Living in a suit./ But he does say what I tell him/ Even though it isn't welcome/ He will never have the freedom/ To refuse." The gravelly voice that delivers this story of the two Cohens is that of a tired giant sitting in a children's park where the kids have grown up. Which is when I look at the album cover and let out a smile as he proceeds to tell me how "I want to make it certain/ that he doesn't have a burden/ that he doesn't need a vision./ That he only has permission/ to do my instant bidding..."
'Show me the place' has Cohen create sheer beauty out of voice, words and music that resembles particulate matter. "Show me the place/ where you want your slave to go/ Show me the place/ I've forgotten, I don't know/ Show me the place/ where my head is bent and low/ Show me the place/ where you want your slave to go... Show me the place/ where the word became a man/ Show me the place/ where the suffering began," he sings with a direct access to Nature and the Heart.
He puts on a devilish air in 'Darkness', a snappety number that has the electric keyboard playing impish rogue. 'Crazy to love you' talks-sings us through a guitar-plucked story of heartbreak where you lose your soul and mind and you win the girl. "I had to go crazy to love you/ had to let everything fall/ had to be people I hated/ had to be no one at all," the man sings out the words as if they formed in his mouth.
Old Ideas stuns and makes one sit down because of its quiet, precise majesty that a late Dylan would have robbed to borrow. And I say this is without ever being a Leonard Cohen fan.
"So Young But So Cold"
Leonard Cohen understands the aging process. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he does not look to reinvent, adapt, or modernize: his well-worn sound is an oiled baseball glove or a fine Tennessee sour mash. In fact, listening to Cohen's latest album Old Ideas is proof that although the highly-decorated poet may be past his prime, he is nowhere near losing touch: for everything about this record is resonant, organic, and of a certain dark pretty.
Be warned: Old Ideas is not the sort of record that will send old-faithful listeners back to the beautiful, dark cave that Cohen has effortlessly created over his 4+ decade career. Neither is it the sort of thing that will turn on new listeners to Cohen's special brand of blissful melancholy. Alas then, that leaves us few who are duly somewhereabout in the middle. This is a bit of overstatement, let's double-up: Old Ideas may appeal to anyone, really, but it is best for those who already appreciate Cohen's unorthodox compositions and heart-breaking verse--not quite the fanatic, for there is a certain time, place, and mood where music like this can fly. For those people, you might just have your perfect Leonard Cohen album.
Standout tracks like "Banjo" and "Darkness" deliver the type of infectious but comfortable blues-based sway that is incorporated into almost every important pop record ever. In these songs, smooth, sweeping organs and smoky bar atmospherics that are as cool as Tom Waits provide the back bone for lyrics that are as poetic and tender as Nick Cave. Longtime fans will certainly celebrate the lush and gloriously imperfect "Crazy To Love You," which has the warm and weathered feeling of classic Cohen cuts like "One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong" or "Master Song."
...
I am confident in speculating that there will be some point in space-time where you'll find yourself stuck in the rain, or hopelessly in love, or at the lowest point before absolute psychosis where Old Ideas will make you smile, laugh, or dance a bit; it has that featherweight girth of realization. At the same time, one can also say that Old Ideas is exactly the sort of record you'd expect from Leonard Cohen in 2012. This is to say, it's a little paint-by-numbers and Cohen doesn't help his argument by making all of his stage magic appear so effortless.
I must admit, Cohen is an intimidating subject to reproach: after all, how do you clip a giant? I mean, frequently I know that he could do better. Opening track "Going Home" even hints at a concept record, with its candid and paranoid self-awareness. It's an exciting prospect, the elder statesman looking back and critiquing his career. That concept record never materializes. Instead, the concept here is Cohen's cult of personality. Consequently, the album feels a bit shallow: a bit "old creaky house of old man wisdom," although never, "Grandpa stop telling those same old stories again." Certainly there are no surprises to be found here.
Even then, this is a Leonard Cohen record and Old Ideas retains a certain gravitas that very few can attain. Who knows? Maybe one day, we'll all be Cohenheads! With this one I'm just waiting for that special moment in the rain.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Album Review)"
The Review Maguk by Matthew Webster, February 7, 2012
His first album in eight years, Old Ideas is a welcome return for songwriting legend Leonard Cohen. Many musician's careers will rise and fall in that time, but Cohen, never one to rush his work, has, at seventy-seven, just released another career highlight. Old Ideas has a more stripped-down sound than his previous release, 2004's Dear Heather, and as his voice drops ever lower and softer with age, an intimacy is achieved on this album that gives an exceptionally absorbing listen. "I love to speak with Leonard," Cohen breathes on opener Going Home; "He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit". It is a track in which he immediately revisits some of his favourite topics - reputation, image, isolation and the struggle with his craft.
Unsurprisingly, Old Ideas is full of the lyrical content Cohen has become known for; religious imagery in songs such as the pleading Show Me The Place, sex and relationships present in Different Sides and Darkness, cynical social commentary in tracks like Amen, and self-conscious irony present in songs such as Going Home. Some tracks, such as Lullaby and Darkness, were premiered live on his recent sold-out world tour (along with a number of other tracks that did not make the cut), and many of the musicians who performed on that tour feature on Old Ideas. This should give some idea of the more band-orientated sound the album has, and thankfully it is quite light on the use of the synthesizers that have become more present throughout his later work.
Despite Cohen's frustrating reputation for being some kind of gloom-monger, this album is never overtly melancholic, and the balance of the attitudes and emotion are well maintained, and the understated delivery lends a huge amount of character to the music that should satisfy any Cohen fan, and convert many newcomers. There is also a welcome return to the guitar on this album; of course a guitarist can be forgiven for playing his instrument less with age for physical reasons as well as by choice (Bob Dylan is an example, now playing keys much more often than guitar at his gigs - men in their seventies can't be blamed if they don't have the manual dexterity they once did!) but Cohen recently remarked about his guitar playing that he has "got his chops back", and on songs such as Darkness and Crazy to Love You you'll be glad he did. The music often blends jazz, folk, blues and country elements, and Cohen's weathered growl is offset beautifully by the female backing voices that float delicately above the instruments, forming a perfect platform for his melodic subtlety.
Mortality - a subject often visited by Cohen - is a recurring theme throughout this album (and his career), and is something that he now often refers to with a sardonic humour - the final page of the booklet features a picture of one of his notebooks bearing the words "coming to the end of the book, but not quite yet, maybe when we reach the bottom" - but buried in the growling delivery and wry lyrics is a resilience and joy in the music, and it is clear that this album is more than just another instalment of a long career. It is not his greatest album, true, but it is a welcome and remarkable addition, and is a gently uplifting work that demonstrates his relevance once again in a time when so much music often relies so heavily on gimmick and image.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Rating: 8/10
Leonard Cohen's albums never reward a quick one-off listen. It's the whole thing about wrapping your ears around the words, rather than the music. And age and the appropriation of his money hasn't dimmed Cohen's fervour - he is one of the few artists who was big in the 1960s, who is still putting out fascinating music.
It's his voice - raspy, pointed, and profound - as expected that's the star. The music is understated, and does all that is needed to give colour to the words. Occasionally, it does linger a little too much in the background, or does too little within a song, as if at points you might as well just read the lyrics rather than listen to the whole song. But Cohen's words have often done more than most musicians' music has been able to do - he was of course, as is oft-repeated, a critically acclaimed writer before making it as a musician.
He starts the album by calling himself a "lazy bastard living in a suit" in 'Home Again'. He downplays his status as a poet, and he's full of self-doubt - "he will speak these words of wisdom // like a sage, a man of vision // though he knows he's really nothing // but the brief elaboration of a tube". His voice goes between vulnerable ('Show Me the Place'), bleak ('Darkness', in which he equates love with obsession and death), both sleazy and seductive ('Anyhow'), spiritually empowering (well it seemed spiritual to an atheist like me - in the album highlight 'Come Healing'), and comforting ('Lullaby').
The album covers typical Cohen themes of the sacred, the profane, desire, decay, death, rebirth - Cohen trying to convince himself that he matters. 'Different Sides' is a great closer - he seems to make peace with himself, though, pointedly, at the expense of others. "Both of us say that there are laws to obey // but frankly I don't like your tone // you want to change the way I make love // I want to leave it alone." It's an acknowledgement that he's happy in his ways, and don't expect him to change. If 'Old Ideas' is what a stubborn and irredeemable Cohen will put out, then that's fine enough with me.
"Latest music reviews, including Leonard Cohen, The Fray, Gotye, Young Adults, Chimes Of Freedom, The Twilight Sad, Tenors Un Limited, Boy Friend and All The Saints"
Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas
LEONARD Cohen emerges like a spectre from the shadows to deliver one of this young year's finest new albums.
There really are few artists in Cohen's league, and the haunting and mesmerizing hymns on this masterful work serve as a reminder of that very fact.
There's not a wasted moment on Old Ideas, and each listen merely compels one to go back and listen to the whole thing again in order to absorb all of the poetic lyrics, subtle melodies and distinctive imagery that Cohen has weaved together so beautifully.
Surrounded by simple yet rich arrangements, Cohen uses his distinct and weathered voice to deliver songs dealing with love, loss, longing, regret, sorrow and salvation. He moves through these various themes with a grace and ease that belies his 77 years. Religious imagery is abundant as well, but Cohen is more concerned with spirituality and the healing of hearts and minds than he is with organised faiths.
Who knows how long it will be before Leonard Cohen turns up again, but until that time, he has provided a wonderful album full of passion and fervour that a lot of artists half his age would have trouble equalling. This is truly an album to be savoured.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Soundblab by Steve Taylor, February 12, 2012
Rating: 8.5/10
Old Ideas, the latest release from Leonard Cohen, sees the Canadian singer-songwriter/poet/novelist/wise old sage (delete where necessary) in fine form on this 10-track collection that, at less than 45 minutes, is a throwback to the days when albums fitted neatly onto one side of a C90 cassette.
It's been more than seven years since Cohen put out a studio long-player, a period which has seen him become something of a household name through the dubious distinction of X Factor winner Alexandra Burke reaching the top of the UK charts in 2008 with 'Hallelujah', a song he originally wrote and recorded in 1984. But if it takes a popular talent show - or even the less commercial covers of 'Hallelujah' by Jeff Buckley or Rufus Wainwright - to introduce Cohen to a wider audience, then it's still about time that one of rock's elder statesman is getting the recognition he deserves.
Cohen is happy to acknowledge that, with a recorded output of just 12 albums in 44 years, he is not exactly prolific, from the start of album opener, 'Going Home', in which he describes himself in the third person as "A lazy bastard living in a suit." 'Darkness' lives up to its name, with Cohen delving into the subject of his mortality, musing that "I got no future/ I know my days are few," a lyric which becomes all the more poignant when you consider that Old Ideas could well end up being our last chance to hear a new album by the 77-year-old.
Having said that, Cohen's recent interview with Jarvis Cocker on the BBC revealed a man who, I suspect, will be sticking around for a little bit longer. Let's hope that we don't have to wait until the end of the decade for album number 13.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Vodic za putovanje u unutarnji svijet"
Muzika (Croatia) by Zoran Tuckar, February 13, 2012
Rating: 4-1/2 out of 5
Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
Poruka popularne muzike vrlo je jednostavna: ostati mlad. Da bi to postigli, mnogi umjetnici poduzimaju brojne, ponekad i sumanute zahvate da odrze suludi ritam vremena i da ostavljaju dojam svjezine, pucanja od snage i mladosti.
A onda imamo Leonarda Cohena. Kad se krajem 1967. pojavio na sceni s antologijskim prvim albumom, bio je u tada ne-rockerskim tridesetima, star otprilike onoliko koliko je imao Dante kad je prolazio kroz pakao. Zlobnici bi rekli da je tako i zvucao. Njegov nejaki, ali sugestivni bariton bez problema je interpretirao pjesme koje su vec tada dozivljavale svakodnevne obrade i te su pjesme posjedovale neocekivanu dubinu za ocekivanja popularne muzike. Od tada naovamo, svakim albumom Cohen je dodavao još koju recku kredibiliteta na svoj ionako sve impresivniji konto, pri cemu se uglavnom nije zaletavao s izdanjima (je li to lijepa fraza koja prikriva cinjenicu da je objavio 12 studijskih albuma u 45 godina diskografske aktivnosti?).
Na svakom albumu zvucao je sve starije, a na svom friškom studijskom projektu, "Old Ideas" zvuci, pogadate kako. Osobni dojam je da Cohen zvuci poput uskrslog Tina Ujevica koji je, nakon što je opet došao na zemlju, pohitao pravac u kafanu, narucio jednu litru crnog, i zapjevao s bendom kojeg je tamo zatekao. Smrt, depresija, zudnja, ljubav, sve to je vidio, gotovo sve je probao i o svemu ce tome Cohen kroz svoj duboki šapat reci kako se prezivljava.
U svojoj misiji ima izuzetnu pomoc prateceg benda, koji odlicno cita šefa i nadograduje njegove ideje u pravcu bluesa (briljantna "Darkness" s jednostavnim, a efektnim rifom), countrya ("Banjo") ili folka (predivna "Come Healing"), pa cak i (sporijeg) funka ("Different Side"). Utjecaj benda je toliki da su dame i gospoda iz istog zasluzili ime po principu Bob Dylan and The Band ili Neil Young and The Crazy Horse.
Osim što je kvalitativno album u skladu s Cohenovom reputacijom, "Old Ideas" vec je uspio oboriti rekord kao njegova najprodavanija njegova ploca, i to sve u 78. godini zivota autora. Tome su prethodile izuzetne serije koncerata (koncert u zagrebackoj Areni takoder je bio sjajan), vjerojatno dugo, precizno i strpljivo krojenje pjesama da bi sada, pocetkom 2012., zasjale i zasjenile mnoge mlade autore i izvodace (samo "Anyhow" ostavlja dojam pjesme slabije kvalitete u odnosu na ostale).
S obzirom na kompletnu Cohenovu 'naopaku' karijeru, ne cudi što album otvara pjesma "Going Home" koja je prikladnija za zatvaranje, a to vrijedi i za drugu po redu, odulju "Amen". Zadnja "Different Sides" u svom, relativno receno, brzem ritmu bi u rukama nekih drugih muzicara otvarala plocu, a s ovakvim rasporedom pjesama kao da ne zakljucuje recenicu, nego ostavlja tri tockice na kraju. Cohenov glas u solidnoj je formi, povremeno preravan (ajme, pa to je velika vijest!), ali uspijeva se s muzikom bešavno povezati u seriju intimnih, melankolicnih, uglavnom komunikativnih pjesama.
"Old Ideas" esencijalno je audio-štivo za sve usamljenike intelektualce (pogotovo intelektualke) koji zele biti zavedeni istovremeno stihovima, muzikom i diskretnim šarmom gospode starije škole.
"Guide to travel to the inner world"
Muzika (Croatia) by Zoran Tuckar, February 13, 2012
Rating: 4-1/2 out of 5
Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
The message of popular music is very simple: stay young. To achieve this, manyartists are taking a number, sometimes delusional and insane procedures to maintain the rhythm of time and give the impression of freshness, and bursting strength of youth.
And then we have Leonard Cohen. When the late 1967th appeared on stage with illustrious debut album, was not then in the rocker-thirties, about as old as Dante when he was going through hell. Malicious people would say that it sounded so. His weak, but suggestive baritone with no trouble interpreting the songs that have already experienced the daily processing and these songs possess an unexpected depth to the expectations of popular music. From then onwards, every album, Cohen added that another notch of credibility to your account anyway all the more impressive, with no zaletavao mainly with issues (if this is a nice phrase that conceals the fact that it released 12 studio albums in 45 years record of activity?).
On every album sounded all over, and his friškom studio project, "Old Ideas" sounds, as you guessed. Personal impression is that it sounds like Cohen risen UjevicaTina, who, after he came back to earth, rushed in the direction of a cafe, ordered a liter of red, and sang with a band that was found there. Death, depression, desire, love, all that is seen almost everything and tried everything to how Cohen through his deep whisper say that survives.
In its mission has extraordinary support the band, who reads a great boss and builds his ideas in the direction of the blues (a brilliant "Darkness" with a simple and effective rifom), country ("Banjo") and folk (beautiful "Come Healing"), and even the(slow) funk ("Different Side"). Influence of the band is so great that the ladies and gentlemen deserve the same name by Bob Dylan and the principle of the Band or Neil Young and the Crazy Horse.
In addition to being qualitatively consistent with the album Cohen's reputation, "Old Ideas" has already managed to break the record as his selling of his records, all at 78 year life of the author. This was preceded by series of exceptional concerts (concert in Zagreb's Arena was also great), probably a long, precise and patient tailoring songs to now, in early 2012. Shone and overshadowed many younger authors and artists (just "Anyhow," gives the impression of weaker tracks quality in relation to the other).
Given the complete Cohen 'upside down' career, not surprisingly, the song opens the album, "Going Home" which is more suitable for closure, and this holds true for the second, lengthy "Amen." Last "Different Sides" in their, relatively speaking, a faster pace would be in the hands of other musicians opened the panel, as this set of songs as it does not conclude the sentence, but leaves the three dots at the end. Cohen's voice is in solid form, occasionally preravan (oh, so this is great news!), But manages to seamlessly connect with the music in a series of intimate, melancholic songs mostly communicative.
"Old Ideas" is essentially an audio-read for all the lonely intellectuals (especially intellectuals) who want to be seduced by both the lyrics, music and the discreet charm of the old school gentleman.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
Comenzar el año 2012 con el nuevo disco de Leonard Cohen fue un placer descomunal por dos motivos muy claros: el primero, descubrir al tío Leonard regresando a sus inicios, a sus raíces; y, el segundo, embellecer un verano calurosa con una voz firme y áspera que enfría y suaviza la humedad del cuerpo, al menos, por un largo rato.
El 31 de Enero nos llegó Old Ideas (Columbia); un título que establece una pista muy clara de todo lo que sucede en el disco: un regreso al viejo Cohen, un vuelo por todas aquellas ideas que marcaron su obra y una afirmación a raja tabla que con sus 71 años de edad sigue siendo el mismo tipo folkie canadiense con ideas autenticas: el amor, el sexo, la sensualidad, la pérdida, la muerte.
Su poesía hace de la melancolía un lugar divino para quedarnos y así refugiarnos en nosotros mismos cual tarde de verano bajo el árbol y un cigarro en la boca. El disco abre con 'Going Home', una canción que inaugura la sensación de haber entrado en un viaje hacia el mundo de Leonard y no nos va a dejar salir hasta el final del disco. Sigue con 'Amen', una plegaria para el amor en la cual se reclama, se pide, se ruega que le cuente todo sobre lo que le está pasando.
Otra de las joyas del disco es 'The Darkness', una canción al más escéptico para adentrarse en lo turbio del amor y sus consecuencias post relación; la voz de Cohen nos sube a su caballo y nos deja en 'Crazy To Love You', una oda al amor que se va, que lo deja viejo y sin ganas de mirarse al espejo. Por último, 'Banjo' tiene el aire un aire sureño con tanto aroma a madera y mar que hace pensar que estamos frente a algo maduro, conciso y hermoso.
Para terminar, quiero decir que Leonard Cohen, después de tantos discos, pudo entregar un trabajo sólido que muestra cómo sus ideas son desgranadas, desmenuzadas sobre la mesa siguen intactas, pero, si, evolucionadas a un nivel superior donde la nostalgia y la melancolía son fieles amigas del tío Leonard. Escuchen 'Old Ideas' y entréguense a la marea con olor a madera y tabaco que nos regala el viejo canadiense.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
Start 2012 with the new album by Leonard Cohen was a huge pleasure for two very clear reasons: first, find Uncle Leonard back to its beginnings, its roots, and, second, embellish a hot summer with a strong voice and rough and smooth moisture cools the body, at least for a long time.
On January 31 we reached Old Ideas (Columbia), a title which establishes a very clear track everything that happens on the disk: a return to old Cohen, a flight for all the ideas that marked his work and a statement to raja table with its 71 years of age is still the same ideas authentic Canadian folkie: love, sex, sensuality, loss, death.
His poetry makes melancholy a divine place to stay and take refuge in ourselves so that summer evening under the tree and a cigar in his mouth. The album opens with 'Going Home', a song that opens the feeling of having entered into a journey into the world of Leonard and is not going to let out until the end of the disc. Follow with 'Amen', a prayer for love in which is claimed is requested, please tell you all about what's going on.
Another of the jewels of the album is 'The Darkness', a song the most skeptical to venture into the murky consequences of love and its relationship post, Cohen's voice gets on his horse to us and let us in 'Crazy To Love You', an ode to love that is gone, that leaves old and unwilling to look in the mirror. Finally, 'Banjo' has the air with such a southern flair and sea-scented wood which suggests that we are facing something mature, concise and beautiful.
In conclusion, I say that Leonard Cohen, after all these records, could deliver a solid job showing how their ideas are shelled, crushed on the table remain intact, but if, evolved to a higher level where nostalgia and melancholy are faithful friends of Uncle Leonard. Listen to 'Old Ideas' and surrender to the tide with snuff smell of wood and gives us the old Canadian.
"Review: Leonard Cohen Old Ideas"
Even if you are a big fan of Leonard Cohen's catalogue (11 studio albums from his 1967 debut Songs of Leonard Cohen to 2004's Dear Heather), you may have been skeptical when you heard he was coming out with a new one called Old Ideas.
It's been eight years since the 77-year-old last released an album--how will it sound?
The answer, in short, is predictably seasoned but truly riveting. Leonard is an intensely romantic man with such a strong philosophical undercurrent to his personality that he can make sex sound like salvation (and vice-versa).
Leonard, who spent several years in a Buddhist monastery, has a way to touch and express the human spirit that few artists have ever imagined, much less approached. Like Bob Dylan, he appears to be aging like fine wine.
When Leonard's first album came out in 1967, he was already a published and well-received poet. The lyrics in Old Ideas are poetic from start to finish. In "Going Home," he sings: "I love to speak with Leonard/he's a sportsman and a shepherd/he's a lazy bastard living in a suit."
The religious overtones that are sprinkled throughout this work are most noticeable in association with his acknowledgement of his own mortality. In "Banjo," he writes, "It's coming for me darling, no matter where I go/its duty is to harm me, my duty is to know." In "Darkness," he says, "I got no future, I know my days are few."
The album is dark and deep, like many of his previous albums. Revisiting "Darkness," he makes getting into the wrong relationship sound like making a deal with the devil, "I caught the darkness drinking from your cup/I said, 'Is this contagious?'/you said, 'Drink it up.'"
"Anyhow," which delves into the subject of asking for forgiveness, starts off as a poetic recitation and slowly builds with sparse piano, "Have mercy on me baby/ after all, I did confess/even though you have to hate me/could you hate me a little less?"
While his voice does seem old and strained from time to time, it is helped immensely by the angelic backing vocals by Sharon Robinson, Jennifer Warnes and the Webb Sisters.
Although it would be very difficult to pick the best tracks on this stellar offering, "Darkness," "Different Sides" and "Amen" are three that particularly stand out. Hopefully, we'll hear from him at least once or twice yet again in the golden years to come.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen "Old Ideas" (2012) 1/5"
RadioBreizh (France) by Gwenael Kere, February 13, 2012
En 1967 paraissait le premier album de Leonard Cohen, et ses premiers tubes "Suzanne" et "So long Marianne". 44 ans plus tard, le canadien ne sort que son douzième album, Old ideas. Il faut dire que le poète à la voix rocailleuse prend son temps, obsédé par la précision des mots et des rimes, subissant de son propre aveu un long et douloureux processus d'écriture.
Quelques choeurs féminins et aériens accompagnent la voix presque murmurée du chanteur, de l'orgue, un groove jazzy, quelques influences gospel ou country, la recette est immuable pour porter ces textes sombres, souvent pessimistes, empreints de regrets, de souffrance et de misanthropie, mais aussi d'amour et d'humour. "Amen" rappellera "Everybody knows" ou le célébrissime "Hallelujah" : Cohen parle aussi de Dieu et de l'obscurité qui s'approche.
Varié et élégant, Old ideas ne révolutionne pas l'oeuvre du chanteur, mais c'est tant mieux.
"Leonard Cohen "Old Ideas" (2012) 1/5"
RadioBreizh (France) by Gwenael Kere, February 13, 2012
In 1967 appeared the first album of Leonard Cohen, and his early hits "Suzanne" and "So Long Marianne". 44 years later, the Canadian leaves only his twelfth album, Old ideas. It must be said that the poet at the gravelly voice takes his time, obsessed with the precision of words and rhymes, undergoing his own admission a long and painful process of writing.
Some female vocals accompany the air and almost whispered voice of the singer, organ, a jazzy groove, some gospel and country influences, the recipe is to bring these texts unchanging dark, often pessimistic, full of regret, pain and misanthropy, but also of love and humor. "Amen" remind "Everybody knows" or the famous "Hallelujah": Cohen also speaks of God and darkness approaching.
Versatile and elegant, Old ideas does not revolutionize the work of singer, but as better.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (Columbia)"
The usual hushed, spiritual material, though he seems to be holding back
On the follow-up to 2004's underrated Dear Heather, North America's finest songwriter sounds cursed by his pedestal. Once an outlier in his slate of mid-'80s apocalyptic warnings you could dance to, "Hallelujah" has become his signature tune, and an impossible foundation: you get the sense that every new Leonard Cohen song that dissects desire, wickedness and sin is designed as a hymn, an open hand risen up to the heavens.
He knows he's good at such hushed, spiritual material, particularly as his voice wears down and cackles with knowing irony. Is it wrong, though, during an LP that embodies some of the strongest songs and lyrics in his four-decade career, to miss the unhinged moments? The beats? The menace?
The calm resignation of aging on Old Ideas is moving, but it's hard not to feel regret when he expounds and seduces but almost never bites, as though he's holding back out of professionalism. Kinkier oddball selections "Amen" and "Different Sides" provide some relief, and when Cohen sneers "Come on baby, give me a kiss/Stop writing everything down," this record suddenly seems worth the seven-year wait.
"Review: Old Ideas, by Leonard Cohen"
Losing your pension pot is hardly justification for a 77-year-old entertainer completing a strenuous series of world tours, from 2008 to 2010, with a new album. But if that's why Leonard Cohen did it perhaps we should briefly give thanks to those who cheated him out of his security.
The album's title, Old Ideas, is as ambiguous and paradoxical as anything Cohen has produced in a lifetime of inspired writing - and so is the content. As well as the master's superb creations and gravelly contributions, Anjani Thomas wrote the music for, and produced, Crazy To Love You. The major collaborator, however, is Patrick Leonard, best known for his long-time collaboration with Madonna - and it's perhaps notable that the tracks on which Leonard worked are among the very best on this album.
The ideas, the songs and the lyrics are as fresh as tomorrow - but, as ever, there are recurring echoes of the ideas shared over a lifetime. The first track, Going Home, is classical Cohen irony:
I love to speak with Leonard
He's a sportsman and a shepherd
He's a lazy bastard
Living in a suit.
The female backing singers provide a rich and warm background, but the song is centred on Cohen and the journey he has been travelling these eight decades. Whatever else is true, though he may now be living in a suit and may have developed a sartorial style far from that of his youth, he is no lazy bastard.
No writer merges and manages such myriad styles and cultures with such creative style, but style does not imply any lack of effort or energy. What is also powerfully present is a harsh, ethical view of fate, a sure knowledge of the fallibility of the individual and of the hunger for love, urgently demanded, never attained but nonetheless of ultimate value.
Cohen may be of the Kohanim, the lineage of Judaic priests - and, as recently as 2009, he ended his Ramat Gan concert in Israel with the traditional priestly blessing - but he is the rebel who has always identified with tradition. He delves into religion on the widest of spectra - and, as ever, transcends any particular creed. Who else could remain an observant Jew, a Buddhist monk and even perhaps one of Christianity's more sympathetic interpreters?
Show me the place
Help me roll away the stone
Show me the place
I can't move this thing alone
Show me the place
Where the word became a man
Show me the place
Where the suffering began.
And at one level, suffering and despair seem close to the heart of Cohen's self-image. That's always been the jest: "music to slit your wrists to". Yet this album, like so many before, offers more than misery. It's partly the irony, the jesting at life and death, but it's also the indefatigable return, even at 77, to the search for love. He still hopes for some mercy:
The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind.
We're all looking for it, Leonard, that magical healing of the mind. From a generation whose troubadour and counsellor you have been, there is enormous gratitude that at your mature stage you are still offering us the means to attain it. This album stands with the very best of Cohen's creations. What a joy!
"Leonard Cohen: Old ideas for a new audience"
Legendary singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen is one of the most highly regarded musicians on the planet, so whenever he dishes out new material, it is considered to be something of an event. Still singing about spirituality, mortality and sexuality at the ripe age of 77, he shows no signs of dulling the teeth of his witty songwriting. While it's unfortunate that the closest most people will come to hearing his stuff is through covers of "Hallelujah," the fact that such a unique and poetic voice is still active in the music world is a blessing indeed.
Speaking of blessings, Cohen wastes no time getting his religion on in the opening minutes of his new album "Old Ideas." In the soulful track "Going Home," Cohen imagines what the big guy in the sky would say about his songs while simultaneously hinting at his own death: "A cry above the suffering/A sacrifice recovering/But that isn't what I need him/To complete." The song is a perfect lead-in to the slow gospel vibe of the album, with Cohen's trademark female backup singers providing the hooks. It's his catchiest and most satisfying opener since 1992's "The Future."
Things move along quite nicely in the album's first half as Cohen shuffles through the burlesque tune of "Amen" and the gruff, locomotive "Darkness." Once you hear the triumphant ballad "Show Me the Place," you will be moved beyond words at how effortlessly Cohen manages to create a beautiful moment of grace using his humble baritone voice, a hymn-like song structure and angelic background vocals. In the song's chorus, he expresses the painful burden of virtue with, "Show me the place, where you want your slave to go/Show me the place, I've forgotten, I don't know." It's overwhelming power makes it the key track of "Old Ideas." This kind of bare honesty is rare in modern music, which is all the more reason to treasure it.
It's more of a mixed bag once the album approaches its halfway point and becomes less focused. The lyrics remain brilliant--"I'm tired of choosing desire/I've been saved by a blessed fatigue/The gates of commitment unwired/And nobody trying to leave"--however, the musical arrangements sort of feel shapeless in comparison to what came before. You'll realize how crucial the backup singers really are when Leonard briefly decides to go solo on "Crazy to Love You." The few weak songs that show up in the middle feel like B-sides, but the beautiful thing about a Leonard Cohen B-side is that it's just as good, if not better, than any pop single you're bound to hear on the radio.
The album quickly gets back on its feet, livening things up with the powerful vocal harmonies of "Come Healing" and the festive New Orleans flavor of "Banjo." There is even a memorable lullaby track that isn't quite what you expect it to be. It all ends on a groovy, electric organ-fueled bang with the song "Different Sides." Despite his spiritual musings, Cohen suggests on this track that he's not quite done being a clever devil of appetites. "Old Ideas" can feel a little top-heavy in the musical department, but it achieves greatness nonetheless. This is the album to beat in 2012.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
The Dropp by Zach Frimmel, February 8, 2012
Rating: 8.0
For a '60s-era poet who was scoffed at by music agents for being too old to start music, an existential emissary who overcame clinical depression and misappropriated bankruptcy, a bachelor with brackish passions regarding love, and a soon-to-be octogenarian who played a 247-gig tour performing a minimum of three hour sets, it's safe to say Leonard Cohen is a Canada-brazen badass. Being a character who read action hero comics as a kid and who claims he didn't write anything significant until he was nine (when his dad died), Cohen's anti hero career gained momentum after publishing poetry collections like Flowers For Hitler and novels like The Favorite Game, as they embraced the power of liberal arts to incite controversy and illuminate identity. However, the life of a four-figure selling writer wasn't enough to make ends meet in Cohen's post-grad situation. So out of curiosity, his affinity for folk-country music and guitar playing lead him down to Nashville to check out its flourishing music scene in hopes of finding financial stability.
This meandering resulted in his 1967 musical debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen, which is still regarded as one of his most critically acclaimed works. Spanning the time of thirty-seven more years, Leonard Cohen recorded such notable songs as: "Suzanne," "Master Song," "Everyone Knows," the daft, "Don't Go Home With Your Hard-on," "Villanelle For Our Time" (a F.R. Scott poem put to music) and the raconteur's angelic magnum opus, "Hallelujah." In recent years, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright and others who have covered "Hallelujah" have acted as musical conduits for reviving this cult classic, though a recent moratorium has subtly been requested due to popular culture's bludgeoning of it.
Leonard Cohen's voice and legendary legacy has greatly deepened since 1967. His lyrical wisecracks and aphoristic anthems are as sharp as his suits and offer simple life lessons to chew, though they sometimes take an initial regurgitation and four stomachs to digest. The 90s only saw one fruit, The Future, from the singer/songwriter, possibly because he adopted a monastic lifestyle one year after the release. But now In this new decade, fans and the musically attentive crowd will get to hear Cohen's backyard-studio recorded, Old Ideas, which is his twelfth studio album to date and his latest since 2004.
Cohen is very punctilious when it comes to his words and their posture (e.g. years and myriads of editing went into writing "Hallelujah"). This display of stringent songwriting is as apparent as ever throughout the 41-minute exposé as well as him sticking to his gospel-gal guns, which he's quoted inan interview with CBC saying, "I was very much influenced by women's background voices...I like those songs that had that feel. Those are the songs of the 50s that I tried to reproduce. Also, my own voice sounded so disagreeable to me...that I really needed the sweetening of women's voice behind me."
The gospel elements in sub-pop blues hits like "Darkness" are very appropriate, on one hand, as his songs are filled with religious and spiritual images, yet, on the other yet, gospel music connotes a rejoicing vibe, which he finds a way to tastefully contrasts with most of his songs as they are saintly dark - usually in regards to faith or folly. The opener to Old Ideas is "Going Home," which Cohen describes to Dorian Lynskey as "a manual for living with defeats" in an interview with The Guardian. The medley (and album) is quite minimal in sound, nothing unwonted about that, as a slight rattle of drums waltzes with a light touch of synth and classical instruments underneath the crooner's refrain, "Going home without my sorrow / Going home sometime tomorrow / Going home to where it's better than before / Going home without my burden / Going home behind the curtain / Going home without the costume that I wore." A similar repetition of metrical style is explored in "Show Me The Place," which is reminiscent of Gil Scott-Heron's I'm New Here half-spoken-word-half-warble style, save the short interview interludes and Kanye West samples.
A large portion of Old Ideas addresses the obvious, old ideas stored away in the experience of Cohen and some kind of cultural conscious. As most of the guru's music goes, Old Ideas sonically reflects back to a retrograde aesthetic, yet waltzes with a liberal tongue. Throughout the anti hero's career, he has been perceived as a charming deviant, a counterculture icon, and can now be known as a poetic maestro with an epithet on the back of one of his notebook where he pens Old Ideas like, "Coming to the end of the book but not quite yet."
"Leonard Cohen - Show Me The Place"
Fresh Muze by Ginzy, February 15, 2012
Montreal's prodigal son has finally returned. After 8 years of absence, Leonard Cohen is back with a brand new studio album entitled Old Ideas. Arguably the greatest Canadian poet of all time, he stands among a distinguished few. Indeed, LeoCo can and should be mentioned in the same breath as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Serge Gainsbourg and Tom Waits. His songs, such as Hallelujah (1987) and Suzanne (1967), have become timeless, transcending creed and culture. Over the years, people from every walk of life have become transfixed in his masterful poetry, which intelligently broaches matters of spirituality, struggle, love and loss.
Old Ideas is not the feeble effort of an old man desperately clinging to whatever shred of grandeur he may still possess. Far from it. Rather, the album is an acceptance, both mortality and mistakes. Ol' man Leo knows where he's been, what he's done, and who he's done it to. In light of it all, it's quite a beautiful thing to see a man so at peace with himself. He was fortunate enough to have been supported by a talented group of artists and producers, including Patrick Leonard (known for his longtime collaborations with Madonna), Dino Soldo (Cohen's touring saxophonist), as well as singers Anjani Thomas and Jennifer Warnes, to name a few.
This song, Show me the place, is off L.C's freshly-released album, Old Ideas. It's a deeply spiritual piece, which hints at resurrection, and rising from the rubble ("help me roll away the stone"). With backing vocals provided by Jennifer Warnes, as well as the appeasing melodies of a piano, violin and organ, the song is drenched in hymnal glory. Cohen calmly recites his poetry with his trademark baritone moan, sounding both wise and weary all at once. In the words of Thom Jurek, of AllMusic, "the song is a prayer, not for redemption, but to go ever deeper into the cloud of spiritual unknowing before his demise, to discover the terrain where suffering itself is birthed." I strongly encourage you all to take a second to read over the lyrics. Shit is deep.
Notable Quotables:
Show me the place where you want your slave to go
Show me the place I've forgotten I don't know
Show me the place for my head is bending low
Show me the place where you want your slave to go
Show me the place help me roll away the stone
Show me the place I can't move this thing alone
Show me the place where the Word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began
The troubles came, I saved what I could save
A thread of light, a particle, a wave
But there were chains, so I hastened to behave
There were chains, so I loved you like a slave
Show me the place, where you want your slave to go
Show me the place, I've forgotten I don't know
Show me the place, for my head is bent and low
Show me the place, where you want your slave to go
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (CD)"
eKultúra (Hungary), February 14, 2012
„I love to speak with Leonard
He's a sportsman and a shepherd
He's a lazy bastard
Living in a suit" (Going Home)
Az albumot nyitó, kello cinizmussal társult önreferencia mosolyra késztet, a szöveget inkább csak mondó, a lehetséges melódiák ívét inkább csak sugalló Cohen eloadásmódját tökéletes ellenpontként költi dallá a zenekar és a háttérénekesek. Ismeretlen ismerosként köszön a hangzás, akaratlanul is Presser Gábor „Majd Leonard" szerzeménye ugrik be (Kis történetek, BMG 1996), a két dal közös szereploi Leonard és maga az Úr miatt is. Cohen istene nem zenét rendelni jött, hanem meggyozodni arról, hogy az öltönye nélkül a függöny mögött távozni készülo lélek felkészült-e új otthonára. Teljesen szükségtelen szerelmes dalokat, a megbocsátás himnuszait vagy éppen a vesztes élet kézikönyvét írogatnia, elég ha az úr bölcsességét kántálja, amely persze éppen egybeesik Leonard szerelemre, megbocsátásra irányuló intencióival. Az album tematikájára is alliteráló sorok ezáltal akár felsobbrendu megerosítést is nyerhetnének, ha nem ironikusan értenénk a szavak játékát, hogy a szöveg az így létrejövo többszörös személyiség én referenciáinak végtelen spiráljába taszítson minket. A „Going Home" egy zseniális vers, amirol talán a legtöbbet mégis az árulja el, hogy amikor egy zárt köru New York-i lemezhallgatáson, a Joe's Pub-ban azt kérdezték Cohentol, hogy hol volt amikor az album nyitó darabját írta, csak annyit válaszolt: „Bajban."
A világba belefáradt, ám még mindig élni vágyó ember lírája mindezek után nem is meglepo a banjo, trombita, hegedu és gitár által megfestett és kizárólag Cohen által jegyzett „Amen" hangulatában, amelynek még csak távolabbi biblikus utalásait teszik direktebbé a „Show Me The Place" vagy a „Come Healing". Utóbbi himnikus noi kórusa a lemez legnagyszerubb zenei élménye, amelynek fénye még szebben ragyog Cohen egészen mély tónusú hangjának tükrében. A zsoltár sorokat magábafonó szöveg egészen ünnepi pillanatot teremt és világít rá egy közös emberi tulajdonságra: életünk vége felé egyre érdeklodobbé válunk a vallások iránt és talán megértobbek is leszünk velük szemben.
Szerencsére Cohen érdeklodése meroben intellektuális, legalábbis a lemez dinamikája sokkal inkább egy olyan idos ember portréját nyújtja, aki költészetének ritmusát még e világi életéhez igazítja, még ha azt esetenként sötéten is látja:
„I got no future
I know my days are few
The present's not that pleasant
Just a lot of things to do
I thought the past would last me
But the darkness got that too." (Darkness)
A nylon húros gitáron bevezetett, orgona és zongorahangokkal kísért egyszeru blues formához illesztett vers azért is élmény, mert a felejtéssel párosult rezignált ember önreflexiója cseppet sem elkeseredetten, hanem inkább az elfogadás hangján, a hangszín egy olyan spektrumán szólal meg, amit egyszeruen kellemes hallgatni. és ez így van az egész, finoman hangszerelt, minimalista hangzású lemezen, amely tökéletes eszköze a szavak felerosítésének. Részben ezek azok az elemek, amelyek garantálják, hogy Cohen eroteljesen én központú korongját szeretni lehessen, és a dolog remekül muködik.
„A hangom egyre mélyebb és mélyebb lesz, mert leszoktam a dohányzásról. Arra számítottam, hogy magasabb lesz, de pont fordítva történt. Nyolcvan évesen ismét szeretnék elkezdeni cigizni. Lehet, hogy éppen turnézni fogok és ez az egyik dolog amiért voltaképpen ismét turnézni akarok - bagózni az úton."
A szerelmes dalok sem mellozhetnek minden iróniát,
„Had to go crazy to love you
You who were never the one
Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache
Her braids and her blouse all undone." (Crazy to Love You)
ám az egészben leginkább mégis az a megkapó, ahogyan Cohen egy idonként hamisan csengo gitáron, nem is kristálytiszta játékkal kísérve önmagát, a zenekar biztos háttere nélkül, a nikotinmentes hangszálai ellenére is énekel, és ténylegénekel.
Leonard Cohen egy több éves, nagy sikert arató turnéja után - amelynek következtében saját elmondása szerint egyrészt rendbe jött zurös anyagi élete (Live in London, 2009; Songs From The Road, 2010), másrészt pedig egy hosszú remete életmód után ismét olyan élo zenei élményeket szerzett, hogy felmelegedett szívének egy fagyos része - tovább ragyog öreg gondolataival egy finoman kimunkált korongon, amelyet a minden modorosságtól mentes egyszerusége tesz igazán nagyszeruvé.
„Ezek abban az értelemben öreg gondolatok, hogy régóta fennálló, megoldatlan elgondolások, morális kérdések. Hosszú ideje zörögnek a kultúra tudatában."
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (CD)"
eKultúra (Hungary), February 14, 2012
"I love to speak with Leonard
He's a sportsman and a shepherd
He's a lazy bastard
Living in the suit" (Going Home)
The album opener, due önreferencia associate cynicism makes me smile, the text is rather suggestive of the potential curve rather suggestive melodies Cohen's performance as a way to spend a perfect counterpoint melody to the band and background singers. The sound is due to an unknown friend, inadvertently Gabor Szabo "Then Leonard" jump into compositions (Little Stories, BMG 1996), the two players in common with Leonard and also because the Lord himself. God do not Cohen's music has been assigned, but to make sure that the suit without a soul preparing to leave behind the curtain ready for new homes. Completely unnecessary love songs, the hymns of forgiveness or even the loss of life írogatnia manual, just chanting the Lord's wisdom, which of course coincides with Leonard is love, forgiveness of intentions. The album is also the curriculum of alliterative lines so as to confirm the superiority would win, if not ironic play of the words we understood that the text of the resultant multiple personality my references into an endless spiral thus reject us. The "Going Home" is a brilliant poem, what is perhaps the most yet to tell me that when a private New York-disc listening on the Joe's Pub have asked Cohentol where it was when the album's opening piece written by just replied: "trouble."
The world-weary, but still living or man-lyric after all this is not surprising the banjo, trumpet, violin and guitar by painted exclusively Cohen quoted by the 'Amen' mood, which only further biblical references make direktebbé the "Show Me The Place" or "Come Healing." The latter hymnal chorus of women's greatest musical experiences of the disk, which shines brighter Cohen up even more beautifully deep-toned voice of light. The psalm text lines include spinning up and create a festive moment reveals a common human traits: towards the end of our lives we become more and érdeklodobbé religions for more understanding and maybe we can against them.
Fortunately, Cohen's intellectual interests entirely, at least in the dynamics of the disk rather offers a portrait of an elderly person who has the rhythm of the poetry of this worldly life adjusts, even if it sometimes even see the dark:
"I got no future
I know my days are Few
The present harm's not pleasant
Just a lot of things to do
Would I thought the last past me
But the darkness got hurt too." (Darkness)
The nylon string guitar introduced, organ and piano sounds accompanied by a simple blues form attached poem is an experience, because the felejtéssel coupled with a resigned man self-reflection anything but desperate, but rather the adoption of voice, the timbre of a spectrum of sound, which is simply pleasant to listen to. And so it is on the whole, finely orchestrated, minimalist-sounding album, which is the perfect tool for attachment to the words. In part, these are the elements that will ensure that Cohen is strongly centered on the disk of love can be, and the thing works great.
"My voice was getting deeper and deeper, because I quit smoking. I expected to be higher, but the opposite happened. I want to start again at the age of eighty smoke. Something might be going on tour and why it is one thing I want is actually on tour again - sneeze on the road."
The irony of all love songs or set aside,
"Had to go crazy to love you
You Were Never the one who
Whom I chase through the heartache souvenir
Her braids and her Blouse all undone." (Crazy to Love You)
but most of all, it is fascinating, as is sometimes falsely Cohen, a ringing guitar, not accompanied by crisp game itself, the band secure background, without the nicotine-free in spite of vocal singing, and really sings.
Leonard Cohen is a multi-year, highly successful tour after - resulting in his own words on the one hand was well messy financial life (Live in London, in 2009, Songs From The Road, 2010), on the other hand, a long-hermit life again after a live music experience gained that warm the heart of a cold part - shine on an old idea with a finely crafted album, which is free from all manners of doing simple really as great.
"These are old ideas in the sense that long-standing and unresolved ideas, moral questions. Culture has long been aware of the rattle."
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
indie Hearts (Argentina) by Mariano Fiochetta, February 16, 2012
Desde la gélida Canadá llega el onceavo álbum de alguien que no debería ser necesario presentar: Leonard Cohen. Con su experiencia a cuestas y el mito a su alrededor, el cantautor, poeta y genial artista nos entrega su primer álbum desde Dear Heather (2004), con el nombre que originalmente éste último iba a llevar: Old Ideas.
El escritor, que empezó su carrera allá por 1967 con Songs of Leonard Cohen y siguió cautivando a la audiencia durante más de 40 años, viene acompañado de Ed Sanders en la producción y de una atmósfera que solo él puede crear.
Con diez temas en los que se reflejan toda la experiencia del canadiense, su exquisita lírica y unos arreglos que exceden al tiempo, el disco mantiene la calidad de todos sus anteriores lanzamientos. Además, el LP fue puesto en streaming antes de su salida al mercado, una apuesta que cada vez más bandas y solistas hacen a la hora de entregar nuevo material.
Going Home, Come Healing y Show me the place son quizáshighlights en un disco que mantiene un nivel altísimo y que representa quizá el mejor resumen de la exitosa trayectoria de Cohen. En definitiva, más canciones para que podamos seguir disfrutando la prosa y la magia del autor de Hallelujah y de tantas otras obras.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
indie Hearts (Argentina) by Mariano Fiochetta, February 16, 2012
From the frigid Canada comes the eleventh album from someone who should not need to submit: Leonard Cohen. With his experience in tow and the myth around him, the singer-songwriter, poet and brilliant artist gives us his first album from Dear Heather (2004), with the latter name originally was going to bring: Old Ideas.
The writer, who began his career back in 1967 with Songs of Leonard Cohen and kept the audience captivated for over 40 years, accompanied by Ed Sanders in production and an atmosphere that only he can create.
With ten topics that are reflected throughout the Canadian experience, exquisite lyrics and some arrangements that exceed the time, the disc maintains the quality of all their previous releases. In addition, the LP was released on streaming before its release, a bet that more and more bands and musicians make when delivering new material.
Going Home, Healing Come and Show me the place are perhaps highlights on a disc that maintains a high level and it represents perhaps the best summary of the success story of Cohen. In short, more songs so we can continue to enjoy the prose and the magic of the author of Hallelujah and many other works.
"Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas'"
- Leonard Cohen's latest album returns us to his dark ballroom of late night apocalyptic poetic waltzes, haikus and tongue-in-cheek pessimistic self-reflections.
Old Ideas is built off of much the same musical landscape that Cohen has carefully laid for the last ten years with spare and lean cabaret instrumentation, Sharon Robinson's gorgeous, simple and clear background vocal arrangements and his own vocal range dropping down to a phantom-like near-whispered low frequency, his trademark for the last 20 years. His voice is as much his instrument as Dylan's mid-'60s howl, Ray Charles' piano and BB King's Lucille.
His contemplative meditations are built off of American blues, gospel and jazz. On songs like "Show Me The Place," the songwriter walks into the warm comfort of Stephen Foster's "Hard Time," with his own updated sentiment "I save what I could save/a thread of light/a particle, a wave/but there were chains."
This song also features beautifully arranged and performed background vocals by Jennifer Warnes who recorded the first and still best Cohen tribute album Famous Blue Raincoat. The song destined to be remembered is his one detour down Boogie Street on "Darkness," which will most likely become fodder for future interpretations.
Old Ideas brings Cohen to a subtle thematic shift he's been exploring for years and maybe, after a string of artistically successful albums and a world tour, he's relaxed enough to simply let his own humorous leanings merge seamlessly into the sudden enlightenment of his well-worn lyrical angst and absurdity. To be sure, humor has always been a poetic ingredient in his work, but this time out, the artist is more relaxed with it and seems to have found the funny bone in his serious musings.
So what shines most on this new collection of songs is the grin behind the dark eyes. You can walk with Leonard and dance through his End-of-Times ballroom, but all you may see of him this time out is a mischievous Cheshire smile, less romantic and dramatic and more intent on tricking you as he disappears into sometimes familiar metaphors and images.
Examples abound on songs like "Crazy To Love You" where he "chases through the souvenir heartache, her braids and blouse all undone," and his sly turn of America's most joked about instrument into a gothic death symbol on "Banjo," which is "broken and bobbing on the dark infested sea," buoyed by appropriately infectious and toe-tapping phrasing. The song brilliantly sums up the balance Cohen has found in his humor and dark imagery.
Old Ideas, more consistently than Dear Heather and less earnestly than Ten New Songs, shows how Leonard, always the poet, continues to sharpen his skilled and unique approach to spoken word with haunting, spare and engaging music. If you're so inclined to walk into his world of Old Ideas, it's more important than ever not to take things too seriously. Do enjoy the stroll.
"The Hear & Now: Cohen finds beauty in the gloom on 'Old Ideas'"
In an interview with longtime Mad magazine artist Al Jaffee in the Comics Journal 301 (Fantagraphics Books), interviewer Gary Groth asked him if he had anything venomous to say about his storied career. Jaffee, best known for his trademark feature, the Mad fold-in, responded, "When you get to be 89 years old, you lose your venom. Snakes don't have venom after a certain age."
This is not the case with 78-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen. On his first new release in eight years, "Old Ideas" (Columbia), the slyly seductive bite of his whispered, carefully paced observations still carry a cathartic toxicity.
Dealing with themes of suffering, failed romances and impending mortality, the 10-track album isn't the bummer you might expect. Cohen approaches the doom and gloom with an engrossing, subdued resolve that finds the understated beauty lurking in the shadows of his heart of darkness.
On the ominous "Amen," his wilting baritone floats ghostlike over the vaguely Yiddish musical cadences as he asks to be reminded "when I'm clean and sober" in his parable of love and redemption. His devious sense of humor shines through on many of the album's tracks, shading the coolly calculated laments "Anyhow" and "Going Home" with a self-deprecating candor that sometimes gets overlooked in his work.
Cohen's dry, biting wit is what keeps the heavy burdens of "Show Me the Place" and "Different Sides" from withering on the existential vine. Like Tom Waits without all the grit and grime, Cohen's poetic summations are eloquently conveyed without haughtiness; they are flesh and bone examinations of the human experience. Cohen's fluid lucidity, enhanced and enabled by the stellar cast of musicians and singers he has assembled for the album, is on fine display throughout, making "Old Ideas" his most consistently engaging work since 1984's "Various Positions."
It may not be something you'd throw on at parties, but after everyone has gone home, this is the perfect album for late-night reflection.
"High and Low: A Review of Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas'"
If you know nothing about him, the first entrance of his voice on his 2012 album 'Old Ideas', will tell you that Leonard Cohen is more than a musician. One phrase, spoken onto the record like God himself, an inch from the microphone, tells you our narrator is a storyteller; a storyteller who doesn't tell stories from a distance - other than the distance of time. Our subject has been a poet, a drinker, a family man, a freight hopper, maybe even a dancer with a cigarette making smoke circles in a rundown dorm room at McGill University- where he studied law, poetry and debate.
On a musical level, Cohen presents a variety of ideas and influences, often employing the help of gospel-style background singers and bluesy piano players. Some songs like "Crazy to Love You" are perfect architecture and simpler, only voice and guitar, whereas the opening track, "Going Home" utilizes modern production and more complex orchestration.
If the second track, "Amen" leaves you seven-minutes-bewildered and lost on first hearing, something like "Show me the Place," which immediately follows, is the type of song one can only write after sixty years of writing songs. Songs like these show the world again that Cohen is the type of songwriter who only comes along once every thousand years- and at times his voice sounds one thousand years old.
In essence this is what 'Old Ideas' presents, and maybe even what the title means: a prophetic and troubled narration from a man who has been through the alpha and omega of emotions: depression and addiction, success and failure, even riches and bankruptcy (in the last decade even). These are 'Old Ideas' that have rang through the minds of man for a thousand years of the same feelings... and if the musical styles do not fit your fancy or if the tone of Cohen's voice is not what you are looking for, surely we can all agree that Cohen embodies what it is like to be a human being, growing old, and perhaps channeling better than anyone else into ten tracks of music, the peaks and valleys of simply being alive.
"The Harlem River Dispatch - Leonard Cohen Makes 'Old Ideas' New Again"
Last night on 42nd street in Manhattan, I saw a three-story-high billboard promoting Leonard Cohen's latest album Old Times, which has been on prominent display beside the exterior of The Foxwoods theater. While most ad spaces in Times Square are reserved for wan and vapid looking models posing in their skivvies, this particular billboard features a 77 year-old beatnik sitting languorously in a lawn chair - surely a sharp contrast to what one usually sees or experiences while scurrying through the crossroads of the world.
Having been a fan of Mr. Cohen's music for quite some time now, I was as puzzled as I was elated to see an ad for his album in that setting. He always seemed to me an artist you had to seek out in dusty vinyl collections - not one the industry would peddle alongside your Katy Perrys or Cee Lo Greens.
Now that I have finally listened to the album, I'm grateful that its marketing execs believed in Cohen's material enough to advertise it the way they did, for Cohen's music and the message it contains truly deserves the attention of our cock-eyed culture.
This particular album, however, may be best understood in the context of Cohen's career and personal life. So before I get to talking about it, I would like to briefly hit upon a number of points that might shed some light on what exactly he is now expressing in his songwriting.
Leonard Cohen began his music career in America in the late 1960's after having struggled to make a living as a poet in Canada. In quick succession, he released his first three albums, proving himself to be an expert songwriter with his honest ruminations on unrequited love and broken but meaningful relationships in songs like "Suzanne," "So Long Marianne," and "Bird on a Wire."
Aside from his earned yet somewhat exaggerated reputation of being a ladies man, Cohen, in songs like "Avalanche," also revealed an artistic spirit haunted with something dark and questioning. Eventually, he would come to address this gnawing and persistent malaise in both his music in his personal life with the study and the practice of religion and the quest to find and get to know his God.
On Various Positions, his seventh studio album released in 1984, there are a number of melancholic love songs which seem to be directed at lovers both corporeal and divine - lovers that he had compulsively wronged or turned his back on throughout the years, despite having maintained strong and complicated feelings for.
"Hallelujah" is the most recognizable and most covered of all of Cohen's songs appears on that album. Rife with biblical references, the song is a meditation on love - not its glories, but the searing pain it leaves lingering in its wake. Consider the lyrics:
Baby I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
Also featured on the album are songs like "The Law," in which the singer concedes to a wronged lover that his conduct has been contrary to an absolute morality, and that he will at some point have to atone for it, as well as "Coming Back to You," which is about jumping over the hurdles of pride and resentment on the chosen road to reconciliation.
"If It Be Your Will," the final song on the album, is undeniable in its religiosity, in that it is solely addressed to God - and during many of his live performances, Cohen has even referred to it as a prayer.
The song is about resigning one's artistic passions and pursuits to the God who first bestowed them. It is a profound and dramatic piece that should resonate with any God-fearing artist, who also fears that their deep yearnings to express and to create may never be fulfilled.
While Leonard Cohen has always been an observant Jew, in the mid-1990's he entered the Mount Baldy Zen Center to practice a form of non-devotional Buddhism as a monk under the tutelage of his longtime friend, Zen Master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki. Cohen has since explainedthat this was to help combat the crippling clinical depression that had been plaguing him for nearly all his adult life - and despite his long fascination with Buddhism and Christianity, he is content with his beloved Jewish religion.
Since Various Positions, spiritual resignation has been a constant theme in Cohen's songs and poetry, a theme which is glaringly present in his latest album, Old Ideas, especially in the poignant "Show Me the Place."
Even though the song is filled with Christian imagery, Cohen continuously refers to himself as a chain-bound slave who has finally learned to love his master. While some might balk at this metaphor as disagreeable or even offensive, I believe Cohen to have touched upon a very important aspect of the spiritual life.
In this age, our culture programs us to think of ourselves as little gods who are masters of our own little universes. We are so blindly happy in this delusion that one has to wonder whether the surge of the new atheist movement comes not from true disbelief in a God, but an unwillingness to submit to one if there were.
I think Cohen realizes that what can break us out of that sort of insanity is suffering. Throughout all his years of songwriting, Cohen's own sense of suffering is something that he had often expressed. What I think Cohen is expressing now is that it was suffering itself which had bound him to his God, as if those chains he sings of materialized with every hurt he caused in himself, or with every unfortunate circumstance which befell him. And after he tired himself thrashing about in defiance, trying to release himself of those eternal bounds, he has finally accepted his place in this world and is ready to obey The One who placed him there.
While other people's spiritual journeys are more comparable to lovers wishing to be wooed, I think Leonard Cohen's has been more akin to a tiger who was reluctant to be tamed - and after years of flashing his fangs and swiping his paw, Cohen is now ready to respond to his tamer's command. I think "Show Me the Place" beautifully communicates that journey.
On the seventh track of Old Ideas, Cohen includes a gentle hymn called "Come Healing," which features frequent collaborators the Webb Sisters. Although for most of his career he was thought of as the poster boy for a depressive and gloomy worldview, Cohen expresses in this song (as well as "Going Home" the first track of the album) a genuine sense of hope, even though his voice is still tinged with a palpable pain and sense of sadness.
But these two songs are very different than his "penitential hymns" of the past - they contain within them an ease, trust, and understanding which Cohen clearly lacked in his earlier years, when we thought him to be vulnerable and yet somehow dangerous.
As we listen to him today, it would do us well to think him wise, and consider his "old ideas" with open minds and receptive hearts.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas Album Review"
ContactMusic by Jim Pusey, February 17, 2012
Rating: 9/10
Leonard Cohen's 12th studio album in 45 years is an understated, spiritual reflection on the virtues of old age. Unlike latter day returns to form for Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, Old Ideas isn't meant to reclaim a reputation; instead it's more a summation of a career. However similarly to his contemporaries the 77 year old mines a rich vein of religion, love and death to create some of the most compelling songs of his career.
Cohen's dry sense of wit is evident from opener 'Going Home' as he refers to himself in the third person; "I'd like to speak with Leonard. He's a sportsman and a shepherd. He's a lazy bastard living in a suit". While not everything on Old Ideas is self referential, the characters share a common theme of internal monologue and reflection, relating directly to the album title. The idea of Leonard Cohen as a fictional creation for public consumption is also an interesting one; it feels as if you're being taken into the narrator's confidence and being given a peek behind the stage curtain.
That sense of laying bare the creative process translates musically on the 10 songs here. The record focuses on Cohen's voice that's starting to bear a striking resemblance to the gravel inflected tones of Tom Waits. No more so than on the gin soaked off kilter hymn 'Amen'. While there's the odd trumpet, violin or banjo to punctuate the lyrics, minimal percussion and piano or organ is the main order of the day for Old Ideas. Cohen's voice has in the past verged on a monotonous drone, here it's balanced by predominantly female choral singers. The experience and regrets of age drip from almost every word, and although the backing vocals can at times feel almost a little too saccharine in comparison to Cohen, they're effective in taking any bitterness away from his Canadian drawl.
The only track where Cohen takes somewhat of a backseat is 'Come Healing' which is structured as a hymn crossed with a religious sermon. The biblical imagery is scattered throughout the record though. From the creeping death blues of 'Darkness', which seems to refer to Holy Communion, to the moral quandary shuffle of 'Different Sides', it's clear Cohen's got one eye on the church. His gaze is otherwise directed towards more carnal pleasures. For example 'Show Me The Place' illustrates the metaphorical chains that can exist in a relationship governed by love and sex.
While Old Ideas doesn't announce itself with a fanfare and moves solemnly through much of its 40 minutes, there's little here not to like. Cohen has avoided the over production of some of his earlier work by stripping back the songs to their musical bare bones and fleshing them out with overarching, universal ideas. There's certainly beauty to be found amongst his confessions and regrets.
"Album Review: Old Ideas"
* * * (3 stars out of 5)
Old Ideas breeds new classics for eternally unique Leonard Cohen
How do you review a Leonard Cohen album? Singularly idiosyncratic, Cohen has spent 40-plus years writing about love, death and hate while taking as many musical left-turns as possible. Cohen spends most of Old Ideas, his first studio album since 2004's Dear Heather, singing in a quiet rasp over musical backdrops that extend from piano waltzes to lounge-like jazz. And reviewing his music has gotten no easier.
Fans have often been drawn to Cohen's lyrics as much as the songs themselves. For over 40 years he has married the light and the dark, injecting even the most depressing topics with wit and humor.
Old Ideas is no different. Poking fun at his eight-year absence, he calls himself a "lazy bastard living in a suit" in album opener "Going Home." Good thing too, because, while containing no murderous hunchbacks (as on Songs of Love and Hate's "Avalanche"), there is still a certain amount of gazing into the void on Old Ideas. "It's coming for me, darling, no matter where I go" he sings on "Banjo," and other songs follow a similar vein.
As on the oft-covered "Hallelujah," "Show Me the Place" mixes sex and religion, operating at a place that unites both.
How you will react to the music depends on whether or not you are already a fan of Cohen. Crawling along with the speed of a road-crossing sloth, these compositions don't contain much melodically to distract from Cohen's murmurs. To non-fans, Cohen's old-man rasp might appear entirely off-putting, merely a vessel to present his often brilliant lyrics. But listen closely, and you might be surprised: Tiny flourishes, like the gypsy-jazz violin in "Amen," add depth to the record and diversify the sound. Female backup singers cover melodies that, in his 70s, Cohen couldn't hope to sing anymore.
Perhaps the defining quality of this record is the age of the man who made it. Cohen simply sounds old throughout, weary and sad, though with dignity and humor. He truly is in a league all his own. This makes assigning a rating impossible. These days, his albums can only be compared to themselves.
While perhaps no Songs of Love and Hate, Old Ideas certainly is more coherent than his last few albums, with their emphasis on poetry over music. I guess I'll end with a reviewer's trick I always assumed was a cop-out: if you're a Cohen fan, add a star; if you aren't, subtract one. But with Cohen, there's no other way. He's simply unreviewable.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
Leonard Cohen's most recent record, Old Ideas, has been available for a few weeks now. His songs always take a while to unfold, so it is premature to make any definitive judgments about it, but my initial impression is that it's a very fine record. Love, carnal and spiritual, has long been his special preoccupation, and that is true in these new songs as well, but the dominant theme on Old Ideas, from a man who is now 77 years old, is mortality, which he confronts with a fitting seriousness and what I imagine must be a hard-won graciousness.
He declares himself in the first lines of the lead track -- or, to be precise, the Almighty Himself sets the stage: "I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit". But he is, it seems, also a man willing to say what must be said: "He only has permission / To do my instant bidding / Which is to say what I have told him to repeat". Thus, with cunning good humour, Cohen opens up a space in which to address the biggest, and oldest, ideas of all.
It is a late-night record, best heard in a quiet room, in a big leather chair, with something pungent in your glass. The musical textures on Old Ideas are more organic than has been typical on Cohen's records during the past few decades: the soft-focus synthesizers are not entirely gone, but they are countered by the snap and twang of real guitar strings, real drumsticks hitting real drumheads, and what sounds like a real violin wending its wandering way. With that welcome difference, the songs here are built on the model we have come to expect: Cohen's sepultural voice in the foreground, speaking as much as singing, and a halo of women's voices shining in the background.
"Come Healing" is in some respects atypical on the record; the figure and ground are reversed, with the women moving into the foreground, and as such it functions as a kind of interlude. I include it here simply because it is so lovely, and captures well the hopeful spirit that, it seems to me, is at the heart of the record.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Pop'stache by Taylor Cowan, February 15, 2012
On the eve of his last album, Dear Heather, Leonard Cohen was sixty-nine years old, still groveling on- a poet in every sense of the word-muttering folk songs that plunged the depths of the human soul. In 1996 when he was ordained a Buddhist monk, a world-weary and self-imposed exile, many felt that Cohen had at long last, hung up his hat. Then, in a swindle as storied as his songs, a former manager misappropriated Cohen's retirement fund, squandering a sum of five million dollars, leaving the artist with close to nothing. The year was 2005 and the storied singer plotted his comeback. The successive 2008 and 2009 world tours were met with huge critical acclaim and put him back on the scene. The question was, how long could it last.
Impossibly, Old Ideas marks Cohen's seventy-seventh year to heaven and little, very little has changed. The album commences with him intoning the epithet, "I'd love to speak to Leonard, he's a sportsman and a shepherd/ He's a lazy bastard living in a suit" ("Going Home.") Cohen has no qualms confronting his own mortality with a studied theatricality and a hard-lined grin. Even the album's title could be taken as a self-deprecatory poke at his own experience. Topics range from penance ("Amen"), to sexuality, "You wanna change the way I make love but I wanna leave it alone" ("Different Sides"), to rejuvenation and of course to love itself. Never one to shy away from the spiritual, Old Ideas could be Cohen's biggest testimonial yet. Some songs are sacred-in-style ballads, others like the quiet gospel of "Show Me the Place," to the chorale "Come Healing," which might well appear in hymnals of the next ten years.
The album art, the shadow of a woman of a camera standing over Cohen, is his own. It goes to show just how superb an artist he remains beneath his many facades. His might not be the most accessible brand of music but it's almost impossible not to love his big heart. Uncannily, the craftsmanship he devotes to his work is second to none, the slowness to his songs, the sparseness of the arrangements here, has hit a haunting fever pitch. Gone are the synthesizers, keyboards and over-ornamentation of his last several efforts, left only are the bones; a violin plays, a rickety banjo is plucked now and again, a wistful harmonica, the piano always holding the tune. For a man in the winter of his life, he has not for once lost his touch. He goes about quietly seeking forgiveness from his old lovers and absolution from his old demons, all without bitterness, asking only that he be allowed to lay down his burden.
Some artists go out in a fit of glory, dead before their time. Others drag on dimly for years, past what even fans might like them to. Old Ideas burns like the last embers of a campfire, casting shadows on the wilderness around it, while we can't help but stare with glazed eyes into the din and sigh. Given the eight year interval between his last two albums, it's unclear if and when we will from our old friend again.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen Old Ideas"
Mother Love Music (Belgium) by Marion, February 19, 2012
Aan heilige huisjes raak je niet. Leonard Cohen is meer dan een heilig huisje. De Jahweh van de bariton met zijn filosofische, ongegeneerd seksueel getinte teksten laat op zijn 77ste en na acht jaar stilte zijn twaalfde studioalbum los op de wereld. In 'Old Ideas' kan de ladies' man der ladies' men zijn leeftijd niet meer verbergen.
Er is weinig sprake van zang, die voornamelijk wordt overgelaten aan vaste backingvocalwaarden Sharon Robinson enAnjani Thomas. De doorleefde, zwoele stem van de geilste jood op leeftijd weet de meest frigide vrouw te ontdooien, zelfs al zou hij kleuterversjes opzeggen. Wat Cohen inboet aan zangkunsten, wordt ruimschoots goedgemaakt door de onverslijtbare tragische schoonheid van zijn teksten. In 'Darkness' luidt het "I caught the darkness. Drinking from your cup. I said, "Is this contagious?" You said, "Just drink it up". In zijn versie van Odi et Amo, 'Anyhow', bekent hij zonder gêne "I'm naked and I'm filthy and there's sweat upon my brow. And both of us are guilty, anyhow".
De meeste nummers zijn inwisselbaar en het album glijdt geruisloos van het eerste naar het tiende nummer zonder hoogtes, noch laagtes. In tegenstelling tot zijn tiende ('Ten New Songs')en elfde ('Dear Heather') telg, is 'Old Ideas' minder melig en nauwkeurig verlost van alle overbodige wolligheid zonder te breken met de folky jazzstijl. Violen, banjo's en harmonica's worden ondersteund door de herkenbare piano- en gitaartokkelwerken van de man die waarschijnlijk heeft leren spelen op holle boomstammen en lianen.
Aanraders zijn de katerende ballade met huilende trompet 'Amen' ("Tell me again when I'm clean and I'm sober. Tell me again when I've seen through the horror. Tell me again tell me over and over. Tell me that you'll love me then. Amen."), het gospel 'Come Healing" dat wondermooi gedragen wordt door Robinson en Thomas en afsluiter 'Different Sides' waar de vinnige kant van Cohen weer komt bovendrijven. "You want to change the way I make love. But I want to leave it alone." Zo bewijst de oude bok maar weer dat hij de enige bejaarde is die we met een graagte nog veel (groene) blaadjes toewensen.
"Leonard Cohen Old Ideas"
Mother Love Music (Belgium) by Marion, February 19, 2012
To not touch your sacred cows. Leonard Cohen is more than a sacred cow. The Yahweh of the baritone's philosophical, unabashedly sexual lyrics are late 77th and after eight years of silence its twelfth studio album loose on the world. In 'Old Ideas' the ladies 'man in the ladies' men his age no longer hide.
There is little evidence of singing, which is mainly left to fixed values backing singer Sharon Robinson enAnjani Thomas. The weathered, sultry voice of the hottest jew age knows the most frigid woman to thaw, even though he would denounce nursery rhymes. What Cohen loses in vocal arts, is amply compensated by the indestructible tragic beauty of his lyrics. In "Darkness" is the "I caught the darkness. Drinking from your cup. I said, "Is this contagious?" You said, "Just drink it up". In his version of Odi et Amo, "Anyhow," he admits without embarrassment "I'm naked and I'm filthy and there's sweat upon my brow. And Both of us are guilty, anyhow."
Most songs are interchangeable, and the album glides noiselessly from the first to the tenth issue without highs or lows. Unlike his tenth ("Ten New Songs") and eleventh ("Dear Heather") member, is "Old Ideas" less mealy and accurate rid of all unnecessary woolly nature without breaking the folky jazz style. Violins, banjos and harmonicas are supported by the recognizable piano and gitaartokkelwerken of the man who probably has learned to play on hollow tree trunks and lianas.
Try the smoked ran crying trumpet ballad with "Amen" ("Tell me again when I'm clean and I'm sober. Tell me again When I've seen through the horror. Tell me again tell me over and over. Tell me That you'll love me then. Amen."), the gospel "Come Healing" that wonderful worn by Robinson and Thomas and closing track "Different Sides" where the caustic side of Cohen comes back to the top. "You want to change the way I make love. But I want to leave it alone." So the old goat proves again that he is the only elderly that we have a much avidity (green) leaves wish.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Las Eternas Ideas de Cohen"
Gladys Palmera (Spain) by Darío Manrique, February 20, 2012
'Old Ideas' ha devuelto al canadiense a un estudio, y al resto de los mortales al placer de su voz y sus composiciones.
Que Leonard Cohen haya sido número uno en la lista de ventas en nuestro país con Old Ideas indica que los premios y reconocimientos, tan vilipendiados, a veces sirven para algo. En este caso el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras, concedido al canadiense el pasado otoño, ha producido una sana curiosidad por su obra, plasmada en homenajes de todo tipo, siendo el más adecuado la compra de este disco.
Buen timing el del premio, al haber llegado unos meses antes de la salida de su primer trabajo de estudio en ocho años. No sabemos si las ideas del título son realmente viejas, pero lo que sí es seguro es que Cohen ha conseguido con él la atemporalidad de sonido de los discos clásicos. Habrá quien eche de menos al Cohen 100% cantautor, con guitarra de palo, de los años 60 y 70, pero aquí también está presente, como muchos de los temas que han marcado su obra. El perdón, por ejemplo, que es casi una súplica en Anyhow. Y la imaginería religiosa como metáfora amorosa (Amen), e incluso cierto aire de música de iglesia en temas como Come Healing (que con su coro femenino suena a folk religioso norteamericano, un "himno de penitencia", como reza la letra). Formas ligeramente gospel tiene Show Me the Place, una de las tres canciones coescritas con Patrick Leonard, un compositor y productor de larga carrera asociada a músicos superventas como Madonna o Elton John, pero que consigue sacar un sonido muy adecuado a lo que debe ser Leonard Cohen en 2012, a sus 77 años.
"Soy viejo y no me engañan los espejos", canta en Crazy to Love You, una de las pocas acústicas, compuesta con su colaboradora habitual, Anjani Thomas. Parece inevitable que el paso del tiempo sea otro de los temas presentes en el disco, pero Old Ideas no es el álbum de un artista agobiado por la cercanía del fin, más bien el de un tipo con tanta mordiente para la paja ajena como para la viga propia, como demuestra en la autorreferencial Going Home ("Leonard, el deportista, el pastor, el perezoso bastardo").
Old Ideas también es pertinentemente variado en lo musical, con estructuras de blues (Darkness) y ráfagas de clarinete ragtime en Banjo, o la armónica que coexiste a la perfección con la base programada de Lullaby. La voz de Cohen está macerada, bien envejecida, y hace buen uso de ella, sin alardes (nunca los ha hecho). Escuchamos hoy la grabación original de Suzanne y parece otra persona, un cantante con una voz quizá mejor modulada, pero menos personal.
La presentación del disco se merece un diez, con un libreto en el que abundan los dibujos y las letras manuscritas por el propio Cohen. Y un once, al menos, para la división española de Sony, que ha tenido la brillante idea de encargarle la traducción de las letras del canadiense a Joaquín Sabina. El jienense, sin duda admirador de Cohen, hace una traducción respetuosa pero creativa, trasladando el lirismo y la crudeza de los textos originales al castellano. Un buen ejemplo es el arranque de Anyhow,que literalmente sería "es una vergüenza y una pena/ cómo me tratas", y en manos de Sabina se convierte en "Da rabia, vergüenza y pena/ ver cómo me hincas los codos".
Ha sido un afortunado regreso al estudio el de Leonard Cohen. Una pena que su vuelta a los focos tuviera que ver con la lamentable estafa de su mánager, que lo dejó arruinado, pero -perdón, Leonard- los mortales nos alegramos de la existencia de esta nueva etapa, de oírle cantar, susurrar o recitar... Da igual cómo lo haga: si lo sigue haciendo tan bien como en Old Ideas será para bien.
"The Ideas of Eternal Cohen"
Gladys Palmera (Spain) by Darío Manrique, February 20, 2012
'Old Ideas' has returned to Canada to study, and the rest of us the pleasure of her voice and her compositions.
That Leonard Cohen has been number one on the list of sales in our country with Old Ideas indicates that the awards and recognition, so reviled, sometimes good for something. In this case the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature, awarded to Canada last fall, has produced a healthy curiosity about his work, reflected in tributes of all kinds, the most appropriate purchasing this disc.
Good timing on the prize, having arrived a few months before the release of their first studio effort in eight years. We do not know if the ideas are really old title, but what is certain is that Cohen has made him the timeless sound of classic albums. Some will miss the 100% Cohen songwriter with acoustic guitar, the 60 and 70, but here is also present, as many of the themes that have marked his work. Forgiveness, for example, which is almost a plea Anyhow. and religious imagery as a metaphor for love ( Love ), and even an air of church music in areas such as Healing Come (with its chorus that sounds feminine religious folk U.S. a "hymn of repentance," as stated in the letter). Forms gospel is slightly Show Me the Place, one of the three songs co-written with Patrick Leonard, a composer and producer of long career as a bestselling musicians associated with Madonna or Elton John , but manages to get a sound very appropriate to what must be Leonard Cohen in 2012, at 77.
"I am old and mirrors do not deceive me," he sings in Crazy to Love You, one of the few acoustic, made with his regular collaborator, Anjani Thomas. It seems inevitable that over time is another issue on the disk, but Old ideas is not the album of an artist overwhelmed by the proximity of the end, rather that of a guy with so much bite for others as for straw beam itself, as demonstrated in the self-referential Going Home ("Leonard, the athlete, the pastor, the lazy bastard").
Old ideas are also relevantly changed in the music, with blues structures ( Darkness ) and bursts of ragtime clarinet in Banjo, harmonica or coexists seamlessly with the base scheduled Lullaby . Cohen's voice is macerated, well aged, and makes good use of it, without fanfare (never has). Today we hear the original recording of Suzanne and seems like another person, a singer with a voice modulated perhaps better, but less personal.
The presentation of the album deserves a ten, with a libretto in which there are many drawings and letters handwritten by Cohen himself. And an eleven, at least for the Spanish division of Sony, which has had the bright idea to entrust the translation of the letters of the Canadian Joaquin Sabina . The Jaen, certainly an admirer of Cohen, made a translation respectfully but creatively, moving lyricism and the rawness of the original texts into Castilian. A good example is the start Anyhow, it literally would be "is a disgrace and a shame / how you treat me," and in the hands of Sabina becomes "Da anger, shame and sorrow / see how I hincas elbows."
It was a fortunate return to the study of Leonard Cohen. Too bad his return to the spotlight having to do with the unfortunate scam his manager, which left him broke, but, sorry, Leonard mortals we welcome the existence of this new stage, to hear him sing, whisper or say. .. No matter how you do it: if it is doing as well as in Old ideas will be well.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (Columbia)"
* * * 1/2 (3-1/2 stars)
Leonard Cohen, 77, doubtlessly always possessed wisdom and wit well beyond his years. Now entering his sixth decade of recording and more than 40 years after the prophetic passion ofSongs of Love and Hate in 1971, the Canadian poet's experienced tales of personal, sexual, and religious rapture have aged with a sense of wistful defeat and weathered acceptance. Old Ideas, his first album of new material since 2004's Dear Heather, gently approaches that good night with a knowing wink and nod. "I love to speak with Leonard/He's a sportsman and a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard/Living in a suit," intones Cohen on opener "Going Home," a self-effacing psalm. And "gentle" is the operative word here. Sedated and seductive, Cohen's deep voice rarely moves beyond a low rumble, his whispers rolling like fog over the cobblestoned streets of Paris, most notably in the sparse, European flair of "Amen." Consistent with the theme of healing and return, Cohen touches on nearly every turn of his career: the complicated hymnal "Show Me the Place"; the speakeasy charm of "Anyhow" and Dixieland-brushed "Banjo"; and the acoustic "Crazy To Love You," which recalls the sensual nostalgia of his 1968 debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen. While he finds strength in patience and restraint, highlight "Darkness" breaks the mold, Southern blues in disguise. Backed by the Unified Heart Touring Band, led by local musical director and bassist Roscoe Beck, Neil Larsen's rolling keys, and paired with the Webb Sisters' swaying backing vocals, a spurned Cohen dances with the devil like Bob Dylan in Together Through Life, conceding: "I ain't had much loving yet/But that's always been your call/Hey I don't miss it baby/I got no taste for anything at all." All told, Old Ideas might be Cohen's strongest effort since taking Manhattan.
"Reflections On Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas'"
No Depression by Peter Wrench, February 8, 2012
OK, record received and a couple of weeks taken for the music to circulate and opinions to form. You'll have seen reviews elsewhere, I'm sure, so you don't really need the overall judgment that follows: this is good stuff and well worthy of your attention - so buy it. Provided, of course, you like Leonard Cohen. There can't be many neutrals left when it comes to this most Marmite-ish of artists: devotee or detractor, choose your side.
I am decidedly with the first group. Leonard was one of the first singer-songwriters I really got and dug into, back in the heady days when I was first exploring music. Which inevitably means that a lot of the others seemed - and seem - pale and shallow in comparison. A friend's older brother had his first three records which we borrowed and taped and traded, and were hooked. Another friend's father was persuaded to drive us the hour or so to Leonard's concert at Manchester's Belle Vue in 1972 - the first big sit-down gig I'd been to - on the tour that spawned Live Songs and Tony Palmer's Bird On The Wire film. Even with no real comparators for calibration, I knew that this was good, and special.
I'd also acquired a battered, secondhand copy of a songbook covering the first two albums and was diligently working my clumsy-fingered way through it as I battled to learn to play the guitar. (A historical note, children: back in the dark ages before the web, songbooks were often the only route to working out how to play a song for those with undeveloped ears. And much printed music was arranged for the piano and featured unlikely and/or just-plain-wrong chord diagrams. This one was a splendid guitar-oriented exception, so I gave it special attention.)
Why am I telling you all this? Because the hours with the songbook not only helped immerse me in LC's lyrics - which usually and unsurprisingly get the most attention from the critics - but also helped me appreciate his often underrated musicality. There are some great tunes and nice harmonic touches lurking in there. And my early exposure to The Army and to the man's sardonic stage patter gave the lie to the (still-circulating) caricature of a funereal, solitary depressive hunched over his nylon-strung acoustic.
All of which meant that I relished the rockier arrangements on record heralded by New Skin For The Old Ceremony, loved a second live exposure at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1985 and was knocked out by the bounce and verve of I'm Your Man three years later. And meant I was correspondingly somewhat underwhelmed by the lower-key, half-spoken, female-backing-singer-heavy, synthesiser-based approach which informed much of Ten New Songs and Dear Heather. (I can't remember the last time I played the latter and I've just had to look at the sleeve to remind myself what's on it - not much really leaps out to me.)
I was then upbeat, excited and flat-out astonished by two exposures to the phenomenal 2008-9 World Tour, at the O2 and here in Brighton. Amazing energy, Leonard in great voice and lovely arrangements from a brilliant band. And what a great atmosphere the concerts were played in: amazing warmth flowing both ways between audience and stage. This wasn't rose-tinted retrospection, the last chance to remember when he used to be good and patronise a plucky septuagenarian before he finally shuffles off. No, this was as good as it ever was - we knew it and he knew it, and the CDs and DVDs prove it.
So, no pressure, Len, for this, the twelfth studio album, released in your seventy-eighth year.
Relax, it's a keeper. The best release for twenty years, I'd say. (And it's a pleasantly Cohen-ish thought that The Future is now twenty years ago...)
I'll get my carping out of the way first: it could have been even better if he'd used his well-honed tour band for more than one song - there are still quite a lot of similar sounding, similar paced numbers featuring a bit more girly oohing than is good for them. But there is definitely more light and shade here, nice use of additional instrumentation, and three songs on which LC plays guitar (and which sound as if they were written on guitar). Furthermore, the one tour band song, 'Darkness' is something to treasure.
As are the words: OK, we're not going to get the ornate lyrical flourishes of the first couple of albums again - just as Bruce Springsteen won't revisit The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, or Bob Dylan Blonde On Blonde - but this is late-period Leonard at his pithy, quotable, double and triple-edged best.
Let's take it song by song:
Going Home is a great opener - elegiac and very funny. Straight into the territory of Leonard's ambiguous dialogues - who's talking and who is he talking to? Just as so many of his songs seem simultaneously to be about his relationships with lovers and with God, his recurrent biblical imagery helping that ambivalence, we're not entirely clear. Going home could be death and/or some nearer, earthly rest. It could be his muse speaking, letting go, or maybe his soul - the part that 'wore the costume' of a 'lazy bastard living in a suit'. And a nice touch that LC and collaborator Patrick Leonard co-write a song that opens with 'I love to talk to Leonard...'
For Amen the voice drops even lower. It's an angry but resigned deferral of some call he doesn't want to hear. 'Tell me again when I'm clean and sober' but also 'When the angels are panting and scratching the door to come in'. There's an effective twangy banjo-like part in the mix - no banjo credited, so probably a guitar.
Show Me The Place slows things down again: piano-led, mournful, with a lovely, sad fiddle solo. Another prayer to his muse or his god. With a striking middle 8
The troubles came
I saved what I could save
A thread of light
A particle
A wave
and I hear echoes in that 'light' of the glorious 'crack in everything' from The Future's 'Anthem'.
Darkness brings out the touring band: organ and brass, slinky with a sense of menace, a blues in structure. There's the familiar sex/metaphysics duality in the lyric, but intimations of mortality seem the dominant theme for me. So I was a little taken aback to read in this month's Mojo that "Darkness appears to be about cunnilingus". Yes, you can interpret lines like 'I caught the darkness / Drinking from your cup' in that way... But it's a bit like being told King Lear is a play about eyeballs.
Anyhow is close to a recitation, until a late night, jazz club backing slides in - all smoky backing vocals, tinkling ivories, brushed drums. Lyrically, this plea for a wronged lover to take the singer back ('Even though you have to hate me / Could you hate me less?') may be slight, but it's an effective overall performance.
Crazy To Love You is a guitar-based song, with a nice change of feel and some well-wrought lines
I'm old and the mirrors don't lie
But crazy has places to hide in
Deeper than any goodbye.
Come Healing is the first real sign of Leonard-by-numbers on the album: plodding beat; girly chorus overload, with Len not coming in till the second verse; no surprises in words or music. You can imagine it perfectly well once you have the title and the mood. Pleasant enough, though.
Banjo brings us back on track: another blues, with Leonard's trademark humour and menace; a nice arrangement of guitar, piano and cornet; all centred on the daft but effective image of 'a broken banjo bobbing in the dark infested sea'. (That's how the lyric sheet has it, without punctuation. If anyone would like a discussion of the relative merits of 'dark, infested' and 'dark-infested', please say.)
Lullaby dices with the bland and predictable ('If the night is long / Here is my lullaby') but is redeemed by some bizarre imagery about a mouse and a cat who '...have fallen in love / They're talking in tongues'. Plus more LC guitar and a refreshing dash of what sounds like a mouth harp but could be a synth...
Different Sides is a strong closer with a jaunty, organ-embellished backdrop to some sassy repartee with the ubiquitous lover/god/muse: 'Both of us say there are laws to obey / But frankly I don't like your tone'. It feels to me like a playfight with his art, and a pretty good place to be at this stage of the game.
You want to live where the suffering is
I want to get out of town.
C'mon baby give me a kiss
Stop writing everything down.
I will stop in a minute, honestly. But having mentioned Mojo's LC interview, I'd also like to commend the CD glued to its front cover: The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered.
This, as the name suggests, comprises all ten songs from Songs Of..., plus five bonus tracks from the next two albums, covered by a wide range of folk, quite a few of which I hadn't heard before. Most were specially recorded, plus a nice Will Oldham version of 'Winter Lady' from the 90s.
Now, you may be familiar with other such compilations and you may have doubts. I agree that hearing Leonard's words from other mouths rather reminds you of what you are missing: much better vocalists than him, several hundred storeys up in the Tower of Song, can sound two-dimensional in comparison; and nobody so completely inhabits a Cohen lyric like its creator - a poltergeist lurking in the fabric of the building. The coverers tend to take things too slow and too seriously. On the other hand, some people are able to make you really listen with a new and engaging phrasing, or an unexpected arrangement.
For me, the best Cohen cover ever is still REM's storming take on 'First We Take Manhattan', and there's nothing quite in that league here. But honorable mentions in particular for Liz Green's intelligent rethinking of 'Sisters Of Mercy' to a piano accompaniment; Bill Callahan's questing stab at 'So Long Marianne'; and Diagrams' transformed - and lovely - 'Famous Blue Raincoat.' And I was particularly taken by the Miserable Rich's version of 'The Stranger Song', after thinking I was going to hate it when it started. It is pitched so much higher than the original that the vocal sometimes verges on falsetto. Its dense and intricate string arrangement has real emotional heft. The singer is clearly thinking about the words and finding new meanings. I find they come from Brighton: definitely a band to look out for.
So, well worth a listen. Think of it as a CD for £4.50 with a free magazine and you'll even persuade yourself you're getting a bargain.
The Mojo article talks of Leonard working on the next album and contemplating going back on the road. I hope there is a lot more to come from this quite extraordinary career.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
The Muse by David Maher, February 22, 2012
Grade: A+
A stranger, a lover, a beautiful loser, a ladies man, Jikan Eliezer, or simply your man: Leonard Cohen returns with another collection of songs destined to ring through the ages. At 77, the man has proven himself as timeless as the songs he sings. Old Ideas is Cohen's twelfth studio album and the first in eight long years. The living legend did not miss a step, releasing one of his finest works to date.
It's a bit of an awkward position to be in, reviewing a Leonard Cohen album. How can one critique the work of a man whose contribution to the arts is arguably greater than any other living human being? His books, poetry, and music have inspired artists for decades; simply put, he is the greatest artist to ever come out of Canada.
Old Ideas does nothing but reinforce such praise. His voice and words bear the burden of a life dedicated to his craft. Songs like "Darkness" and "Anyhow" send the familiar chills one hasn't felt since Songs of Leonard Cohen released almost 45 years ago. The only difference is that his voice has gotten several octaves deeper; his words, somehow, doubly so.
The album meditates on familiar themes. He's lived a life of passion, but never stopped questioning the weight of affection, asking, "You never ever loved me, Oh, but love me anyway."
The album is also a return to form. His two most recent releases, Ten New Songs and Dear Heather, while solid recordings in their own right, at times sounded more like spoken word poetry than songs: not so on this record. Every song features full orchestration with his accompanying band. Perhaps spending almost three years travelling the world with a full band reminded Cohen of the power that comes with playing with others on acoustic instruments. We even hear Cohen himself playing the guitar in "Crazy to Love You," a song which calls us back to his legendary recordings "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Chelsea Hotel #2." His fingers retain the dexterity of a much younger man.
The title Old Ideas may imply cobwebbed works he's taken off the shelf to share with us, but with age comes the refinement of his craft to a level nearing transcendence. Without too much dissonance it can be said that the song "Darkness" may be some of his finest work. His consistency is remarkable, his talent unquestionable.
Leonard Cohen fans often latch on to one album as their favourite and defend it as his best--Songs of Love and Hate contains some of the most hauntingly beautiful works of the twentieth century and I'll fight anyone who dares question it--, but upon hearing Old Ideas, one must perhaps make room at the top of the list for the pilgrim once again.
Call it a swansong, a retrospective, or even a last hurrah, but do not call it anything short of a legendary record. Old Ideas is an early candidate for the best album of 2012. The baffled king has composed another resounding Hallelujah.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas"
Music & Musicians by Eric R. Danton, February 22, 2012
It's a funny thing to say about a septuagenarian, but Leonard Cohen has really grown into his voice. What was always a distinctive instrument has deepened on his new album into a resonant purr capable of insinuating itself into the deepest part of you. Old Ideas is only the 12th studio album in a musical career stretching back to 1967, but Cohen chooses his words with considerable care. He's become more playful over the years, finding a joyous balance between the spiritual and sensual. He blends them to staggering effect on the achingly soulful "Show Me the Place," while "Crazy to Love You" could describe the lengths of his devotion to a lover or a divinity equally. Cohen turns wry on opener "Going Home," and plays the grizzled foil to crystalline female vocals on "Come Healing." The arrangements throughout complement Cohen's voice with elegant combinations of spare piano, guitar and hushed strings. Old ideas? Maybe, but they sound as good as new.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Ugyanaz a helyzet - Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
MagyarNarancs (Hungary) by Marton László Távolodó, February 16, 2012
Utoljá ra, úgy há rom hete talá n, az I'm Your Man címu 1988-as albumá t hallgattam. Ha hang, ha hangulat, ha hangoltsá g, akkor Cohentol ná lam mindig ez volt a nyero, dacá ra annak, hogy az alapjá ul szolgá ló programozá stól egy ideje kiver a víz. Ha jól emlékszem, az a szintihang amúgy soká ig fenntartotta magá t, az 1992-esThe Future, a 2001-es Ten New Songs és a 2004-es Dear Heather címu albumokon is nyomot hagyott, de ebbe most ne menjünk bele, csupá n a viszonyítá s kedvéért mondom. Hiszen má r nem kellett sok ido utá nuk, hogy a 2009-es Live In London a maga vegytisztá n élo (és ná lunk az aréná t is megtölto) zenekara tökéletes és maradandó rendet vá gjon Cohen halhatatlan életmuvében. összeért, ami összetartozott: a líra, a dal, a sors és az ido, és hozzá juk valamennyi nélkülözhetetlen hangszer. Eddig megvagyunk.
Illetve... arról azért meg ne feledkezzünk, hogy milyen "há lá val tartozunk" Cohen menedzserének. Aki kifosztotta, míg egy buddhista kolostorban élt, arra kényszerítve ezá ltal, hogy 2008-ban újra turnézni kezdjen. Idén is fog egyébként, de hogy visszatér-e Magyarorszá gra, arról még nincs hír.
Mindenesetre addig is roppant finoman múlatható az ido Cohen most megjelent Old Ideas címu albumá val. Mely persze úgy a "régi", hogy egészen új, még ha tudható is, hogy má r a 2004-es albumá nak is ezt a címet szá nta. és mely persze úgy új, hogy közben éppolyan "régi": ugyanannak a fanyar szomorká ssá gnak, suttogó intimitá snak, á brá ndos vá gynak, könyörületes esendoségnek, zsoltá ros hazatérésnek az eszenciá ja. Kortalanul és hetvennyolc évesen.
Na, és a régi tá rsasá gá ban. Olyannyira, hogy a Darkness címu szá mot egy az egyben a ná lunk is lá tott turnézenekará val vette fel. Sharon Robinson és a Webb novérek énekével, Dino Soldo trombitá já val, Neil Larsen billentyujével és így tová bb. De a többi közremuködo és/vagy szerzotá rs is, Patrick Leonard, Anjani Thomas és Ed Sanders, csupa Cohen-közeli név. Ami egyben azt jelenti, hogy (bá r éltek a programozá s kegyes lehetoségeivel ezúttal is) nincs olyan hangszer, ami ne tehette volna oda a magá ét, ahová kedve szottyant, legyen az Hammond B3, trombita, bendzsó, hegedu vagy gitá r és a többi, és a többi. Ahogy az illik egy olyan albumon, amely a könnyuzene szá mos irá nyzatá ból - cigá nyzenébol, dzsesszbol, gospelbol, countryból, bluesból - egyará nt merít.
Ennek a tíz szá mnak, ennek a negyven percnek legalá bb a fele kimondottan jó, és miközben eloúsznak Cohen örökzöld, ha úgy tetszik, "régi" pasztellszínei (Amen,Going Home, Different Sides), meglepetésben sincs hiá ny: nincs az a vaskos bluesrajongó, aki a Darknesstol ne szá llna el.
Most mit mondjak, ugyanaz a helyzet, mint há rom éve, amikor Cohen koncertjérol írtam. "A legnagyobb csoda azt hallani, hogy hiá ba az évek. Ha jól tudom, ilyenkor mondjá k, hogy van remény."
"The same situation - Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
MagyarNarancs (Hungary) by Marton László Távolodó, February 16, 2012
The last three weeks so maybe I'm Your Man's 1988 album, I listened. To purchase, if mood when hangoltsá g then Cohentol I always was a winner, despite the fact that the underlying programming time for a swish of the water. If I remember correctly, the szintihang already long maintained itself in 1992 es The Future, 2001 Ten New Songs and 2004's Dear Heather's albums also left its mark, but this just does not go into it, only the reference's sake I. After all, he did not have much time for them to the 2009 Live In London with its chemical clean living (and also fills us in the arena) band of the perfect order and permanent cut Cohen in his immortal life. Touched, which belong together: the lyric of the song, fate and time, and them with all the essential instruments. Having done so far.
Or ... I have to remember how "indebted" to Cohen's manager. Those who plundered, while he lived in a Buddhist monastery, thus forcing to start touring again in 2008. This year, it will anyway, but to return to Hungary, it is not news.
In any case, until then very gently pass the time Cohen's newly released album titled Old Ideas. Which of course is the "old" to a whole new, even if it is due also to have the 2004 album is the title meant. And of course it is new to you just as "old" to the same harsh szomorká ssá gnak, whispering intimacy, looking dreamy, compassionate frailty, the Psalmist return essence. Timeless and seventy-eight years old.
Oh, and the old company. So much so that in the Darkness's number-one here has seen the band took the tour. Sharon Robinson and the Webb sisters singing, Dino Soldo trumpet, Neil Larsen, with keys and so on. But the others involved and / or co-author is Patrick Leonard, Anjani Thomas and Ed Sanders, all close to Cohen's name. Which also means that (although live programming gracious opportunities of this time as well) there are no instruments that do not could have been there for yours, where you feel like szottyant, to the Hammond B3, trumpet, banjo, violin or guitar, and the other, and other. As the match an album in which the various trends of popular music - gypsy dzsesszbol, gospelbol, countryból, blues - both draws.
This ten song, this forty minutes at least half definitely good, and while eloúsznak Cohen evergreen, if you like "old" in pastel colors (Amen, Going Home, Different Sides), surprise is no lack: there is a massive blues fan who Darknesstol would come from the no.
What can I say, the situation is the same as three years ago, when I wrote about Cohen's concert. "The biggest surprise to hear that despite the years. I understand that when they say that there is hope."
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Grade: A
Old Ideas starts with one of the most warming ideas there is: "Going Home." And indeed the latest album from the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter, Leonard Cohen, feels like a return to not only old ideas but old ways of doing things.
As a welcome surprise compared to the other recent album, Old Ideas is recorded mostly with analog instruments. Listeners are once again treated to Cohen's signature guitar work. Organ, piano, banjo, horns, and strings also make appearances on the album and there are notes of folk, blues, gospel, and country influences. And as always, he is accompanied by a host of angelic backup singers.
Cohen's hushed singing is closer to spoken word, but his voice carries qualities both rough and soothing. With a deepness that can only come with age, his vocal tones are mysterious and mythical. Always the prophet and poet, the lyrics are emphatic, sage, and remarkably human.
Lifelong contemplations on religion, redemption, and the current state of the wicked and wonderful affairs of the world permeate the album with sobriety. However, he also shares the beauty and struggles of age-old love and in a quiet, sad way give those of us younger at heart something to hope for in our relationships.
The album is dominantly slow and meditative, but this solidarity gives it an incredibly tender effect that makes listening from start to finish a spiritual experience. These songs are like prayers, said for you and me by music's wisest sinner and saint.
"Leonard Cohen - 'Old Ideas'"
OpenAir 1340 by Cuyler Mortimore, February 24, 2012
Leonard Cohen - a mega talent with a voice that sounds like hot chocolate with a plate of cookies - crunchy cookies. A casual glance at any Cohen bio page shows he's won more than thirty different awards for his writing and music, including Companion of The Order of Canada, Canada's highest orders for civilians. Yes, he's Canadian, but you probably knew that. Even when he's throwing your world into existential doubt (as well as a lot of heartache), you can't help but be comforted by his smooth timber.
The opening words of his new album, Old Ideas share, "I love to speak with Leonard." The song, "Going Home," is a monologue about Leonard from the perspective of an unknown "I." This third person likes Leonard, despite the fact that he's a "lazy bastard / Living in a suit." Is the narrator God? Is it music itself? Or is it the listener saying he likes to listen to Leonard, even if he shouldn't?
"Darkness," "Anyhow," and "Crazy to Love You" form a triptych of love gone wrong, with "Darkness" being that first stage of a breakup, denying she was ever any good for you, but dressed up in a catchy, bluesy, gospel rhythm. "Anyhow" depicts the period you think you've lost the best thing that ever happened to you, and now you want to bargain that relationship back. "Crazy to Love You" shares the reluctant acceptance when you simply have to let go. Breakups are hard - "Drinking from your cup / I caught the darkness" ("Darkness") - but that hot chocolate voice can't help but keep you soothed.
The album closes on a snappy song, "Different Sides," which has a meaty, thumpy, bassline, as well as some deft piano playing. The song is about a war, or a conflict, drawn between two sides. In a way, it harkens back to the opening of the album with an invisible narrator. This one talks about about finding "ourselves on different sides / Of a line that nobody drew." Throughout the song is the refrain "Both of us say there are laws to obey." This cosmic imagery builds to a head, but instead of a battle between heaven and hell, we get "You want to change the way I make love / I want to leave it alone." Perhaps not all things are as they seem in the world, and maybe the biggest conflicts are akin to our most domestic disputes.
The whole album invites such dissection, and as such you must, must, MUST, pay attention to the lyrics, as with all albums, but especially this one. The music is good, but it's almost a hollow experience if the emphasis isn't placed on the words.
"Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Grade: B+
How does one - and more importantly, how do I - review an album by Leonard Cohen in 2012? The 77 year-old Montrealer has worked with everyone from Robert Altman to Herbie Hancock, a buddhist jew who's hung out with Castro and Phil Spector, his songs covered by the Nick Cave, the Pixies and the Rufus Wainwright? He wrote a book of poetry that's been scored by the Philip Glass and has chronicled more lifetimes than I will ever get to live. When he was my age, he was boning Joni Mitchell and getting head from Janis Joplin. And so on. I have no place talking about Leonard Cohen. Apologies in advance.
But I will pick this opportunity of being mildly insulting to write this review pretending that I don't know him. Listening to Old Ideas is both refreshing and alienating: the lack of artifice, the vocals mixed on top of everything, the violins, organs and choirs - and the general radio-unfriendliness of the whole record tells you right there and then that it defies eras. The songs are all original. There are no big names to be seen, no collaborations, nothing that would tell the young mind: hey, give this a try, will ya? Nothing that will tell the old fart: Leonard Cohen is back, remember him? I think it is fair to say that this record is as good a starting point as any other if you have never heard of Leonard Cohen. His songs are self-contained, inscribed in his own person pretty neatly.
The title Old ideas is so. Fitting. Because there is no attempt at being modern (see above). Because you can tell from the richness of the lyrics that they have had time to mature before they were laid on tape - legend has it some of them are 6 or 8 years old, written on one of his many tours since his last studio album wrapped. More importantly, these are the ideas of a man growing old, watching the world around him growing old, watching the world around him watch him grow old. In the first song, he tells us that he would like to speak to Leonard, "a sportsman and a shepherd," "a lazy bastard living in a suit." You know that old man. You've seen him. And I bet you'd like to speak to him. Maybe you have. More importantly you'd like to listen to him because you know he's got some dope stories about something.
Well that's Cohen. Everything he says is delightfully nostalgic, awfully poignant. 'Darkness', the "hit" song on the record sounds like an homage to Gainsbourg in its bleak poppishness. That is of course until you realize that it's not just sex and love he's talking about, it's also death. Banjo sounds like a children's song, really it has kind somewhat of the feel of a gospel, but with some brass to it. Because that banjo is "off of someone's shoulder, or out of someone's grave" - "it's a broken banjo bobbing on the dark infested sea." It's the beginning of a New Orleans dirge, but there is no second line about to pass. The spiritual melancholy is all that there is.
What Rick Rubin did for Cash on the American series, Cohen did for himself. So it's less showy, a bit more drunk. Definitely less conclusive: this is not an attempt to put his last songs on record, no apologies, no regrets. His expression of suffering is not just part of his life, it comes with it: that is probably the Buddhist speaking. But as any good Jew, he scoffs in the face of death and getting old: why else did he have all this sex and make all these mistakes? Never had one lesson.
"Cohen advances his craft with 'Old Ideas'"
Writing lyrics is an art form few musicians master over the course of their careers. Songwriters like Bob Dylan and John Lennon instantly pop into peoples' minds when thinking of great lyricists, but there is one bard in particular who often is overlooked in the greater lyricists' list.
Almost a month ago, Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen released his newest album, titled "Old Ideas," which highlights his ongoing strengths as a talented lyricist and musician.
For over 40 years, Cohen has written lyrics addressing religion, human identity and sexuality and many other motifs. Listeners have been drawn to the way Cohen's lyrics complement the music he chooses to match them with, which always seem to find perfect rhythm with one another.
Cohen is famous to many people of this generation for his song "Hallelujah," made famous again after covers by Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Imogen Heap and a slew of other artists. However, "Hallelujah" is only a sample of what Cohen has written during his time on the music stage; he's written many songs with lyrics just as poetic.
That song is remembered not only for biblical allusions, but for the accompanying vocals sung in a gospel-like fashion, which is seen as the trademark of a Cohen song. A song that is reminiscent of this style on "Old Ideas" is "Show Me the Place," which features somber themes and is probably the strongest track on the album.
The song's lyrics touch upon slavery and despair, and Cohen's vocal performance gives the impression that he is in a situation from which he longs to be released. It is ambiguous whether the bondage is based in reality or is a construct in his mind. And to add a deeper emotional angle to the song, a violin plays slowly throughout the track.
A similar technique is also employed on "Amen," which conveys a struggle with an internal problem which can only be solved through spiritual deliverance. Cohen's music helps transmit the message and theme behind the lyrics. And there is undoubtedly influence from Cohen's personal religious beliefs as well; he is known for reciting Hebrew prayers at his concerts.
Another strong track is "Crazy to Love You," which touches on identity and dealing with a crisis of character while in a relationship. The track has exceptionally powerful lyrics which almost express a feeling of anger, but Cohen's calm voice is a reminder he is the one that is regretful for allowing the worst parts of his character to become visible. The lines in the song, "Had to let everything fall/Had to be people I hated," speak about identity and highlight how having to completely change oneself to be in a relationship is not worth it.
This is not to say that Cohen is a cynic about love and lovers. One piece which has more upbeat writing is "Lullaby," which, in addition, utilizes a harmonica, making the song appropriately titled. Cohen writes from the perspective of a man fighting against the odds to make sure his relationship lasts, crying, "Through the tears of lies/I will come to you." It's a decidedly more hopeful mood than "Crazy to Love You."
It is startling how much of an impact that Cohen's lyrics can have when someone reads them and tries to decipher their meaning. His lyrics can make people think, in addition to providing a form of entertainment that people look for in music. Anyone who listens to this album could find a song with lyrics that resonate with them. The songs on "Old Ideas" are very personal, and while the overall somber mood may shy people away, the power of the lyrics can grab anyone's attention.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Idotálló ötletek Leonard Cohentol - Nyerj lemezt te is!"
MyMusic (Hungary) by Bea, February 28, 2012
Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas | Bár már 77 éves, a kora még mindig nem érzodik rajta. Lehet, hogy lassacskán - 7 év alatt - készült el Leonard Cohen legújabb albuma, mégis sikerült egy kiváló anyagot összehoznia, tizenkettedszer is. Azért azt nem mondanám, hogy pörgos számok vannak a január 30-án megjeleno korongon; azt sem, hogy nem éreztem úgy, mintha egy fantasztikus, szívekig hatoló hangú ember dúdolgatna nekem. De azt mindenképp kijelentem, hogy hangulatos és színvonalas az Old Ideas címu album.
Mit is mondhatnék Leonard Cohen-rol és az „Old Ideas"-ról? öblös, mély de barátságos orgánum, kedves, nyugodt számok, hangulatos dallamok, egyszeru, de tartalmas sorok. Ennyivel röviden el is intézhetném, de nézzük meg részletesebben is azt, hogy az album milyen benyomásokat hagyott!
Számomra inkább olyannak tunik a zenéje, mint egy kellemes beszélgetés egy sokat tapasztalt, tehetséges, bölcs és érdekes úrral. Valahogy így muködik a lemez: ez az igazán lélektol lélekig érzés! Az vitathatatlan, hogy Cohen a legmélyebb érzelmeit szedte elo, azért hogy a hallgató is vele lebeghessen a gondolatok, dallamok magasra repíto szárnyán. Leonard Cohen a tíz szám során sok mindenbe beavat, van közte szerelem, csalódások, érzések és elokerül az életfilozófia témája is; mindezt kissé melankolikus szájízu, lassú, mesélos, de optimizmusra is alapot adó stílusban. Talán az sem túlzás, ha azt mondom, hogy idonként úgy adja át a dalokat, hogy közben fájdalmat sugároz, de egyszerre reményt is nyújt felém. A vokálok ráerosítenek erre az impresszióra, például ez jelenik meg az „Anyhow"-ban is, ahol gyönyöruen olvad össze Cohen szólama a vokálokkal.
Cohen rekedtes hangja érdekessé teszi az albumot, és az is feltunik, hogy nem mindennap hallok ilyen minoségi, jó zenét. Viszont ha nem is ajánlom minden helyzetre zenei aláfestésnek (buli elotti felpörgésre mondjuk pláne nem), az újrahallgatásával én biztos nem fogok túl sokáig várni!
"Timeless ideas Leonard Cohen - Win a disc you can!"
MyMusic (Hungary) by Bea, February 28, 2012
Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas | Although we have 77 years of age still do not feel it.Maybe slowly - seven years - made in Leonard Cohen's latest album, but managed to bring together an excellent material, twelve times. Therefore I would not say that they are spinning the numbers that appear on disc Jan. 30, it does not feel as if a fantastic voice penetrating human hearts dúdolgatna me. But it does confirm that the quality and charming Old Ideas album.
What can I say about Leonard Cohen and the "Old Ideas" to? Deep, deep organ but a gentle, kind, calm tracks, moody melodies, simple but meaningful lines. That much can be briefly intézhetném, but let's look in more detail that left impressions of what the album!
For me, the music seems the more like a pleasant conversation in a lot of experienced, talented, wise and interesting man. Somehow, it works the disk: this is really from soul to soul sensation! The undisputed that Cohen took to the deepest emotions, so that the student is able to float her thoughts, feel like the wings of high tones. Leonard Cohen, the number ten, many interventions in everything, including you love, disappointments, and feelings in life is the theme of philosophy; all szájízu slightly melancholy, slow, talks about ancient, but also grounds for optimism style.Perhaps it is not exaggerating when I say that sometimes they pass the songs that you can radiate pain, but at the same time gives me hope. The vocals are affixed to this impression, for example, it will appear to "Anyhow," as well, which beautifully blends with the cries of Cohen's vocals.
Cohen's husky voice makes the album interesting, and it also appears that not every day I hear such quality, good music. But if the situation does not recommend any background music (let alone, say spinning up before the party), the re-listen to my proof I will not wait too long!
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas Review (Three Takes)"
Reviler by Jeremy Hovda, Jon, and Tim (Vernon Wayne), February 28, 2012
It can be difficult to gain a balanced perspective on an album after reading a single summary of the music. Bias can tilt a review, as can personal taste, history and just about everything else that is unique to the person writing it. So in an effort to offer an expanded perspective in such a medium, here are Three reactions, Three impressions, Three Takes on Old Ideas by Leonard Cohen.
Jeremy Hovda - Rating 90/100
There is something absurd about evaluating a Leonard Cohen album. The work is too singular. There are so few points of comparison with other artists in popular music. Is it good? Compared to what? Compared to the other septuagenarian Jewish-Canadian Buddhist monks who publish in the New Yorker while selling out world tours doing "folk" music? He's definitely in that Top Ten.
Thematically and lyrically, Old Ideas is right line with the albums that built his legend in the late '60s and early '70s. Sonically, much less so. The beauty of those early albums was in the simplicity of Cohen's weathered sing-speaking against spare acoustic guitar. That voice, now deeper and more roughened by age, would be even better served by the old formula. Instead, he opts for a full band with horns, electric bass, synth, archilaud, and wispy female backing vocals (which sometimes come off as a bit cheesy). The result is very close to his recent live shows.
If you were lucky enough to see his mesmerizing, three-hour performance at the Orpheum in 2009 or the filmed London show from the same tour, you know that the full band works well on stage. However, on a recording it works less well. The smooth jazz-style horns and the electric bass sound retrograde, and one can't help but wish he would have had the guiding hand of a Rick Rubin to strip it all down à la Johnny Cash's American Recordings.
That said, the album is a stunner. Cohen may be 77, but he's at the top of his game. Lyrically, he has no peers. Once again, all of the big biblical themes are explored--love, hate, lust, sin, forgiveness, redemption, and, most of all, death. Each is examined from different angles and in different moods, sounding at times hopeful ("Going Home") and others despairing ("Darkness"). Like his earlier albums, it bears many listens and will only get better with age. So if you only buy one album from someone your grandpa's age this year, make it this one.
Jon - Rating 78/100
Despite his legendary status, I am not very familiar with Leonard Cohen's work. I am completely clueless as to what he has been up to basically since 1998's I'm Your Man. Staying active, it appears.
His newest record, Old Ideas, will be his third released in the 21st century. And speaking of active--despite getting old, Cohen still sounds like he's getting around. Even if he's now touched by the wisdom of age, to hear him sing about love, sex, and poetry . . . well, he still has the passion of a young man. Despite some instrumental changes over the years, Cohen is still singing in the same rhyme patterns and gravelly baritone croon. I don't like that he's often accompanied on Old Ideas by a chipper female accompaniment, but that hardly distracts from Cohen's gravitas. For the most part I can ignore the cheesy window dressing and concentrate solely on Cohen and his carefully chosen words. I would have preferred that he just recorded the record unaccompanied by anything save the wear and tear of years gone by. But he doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon, so he's still got plenty of time for an album like that.
Tim (Vernon Wayne) - Rating 83/100
Leonard Cohen comes at you with the softest lyrical hammer on Old Ideas. Tracks like "Amen" display a careful and gentle arrangement that are at times reminiscent of the somberness of "Nobody Home" from Pink Floyd's The Wall. This album feels more personal than that, though. "Crazy to Love You" has the mystique of a French noir film, but wouldn't feel out of place soundtracking shots of an aged, sad-looking Bill Murray dressed in strange clothes in a Wes Anderson film. Despite this, these songs don't feel like characterizations, but a window into Cohen's own somber, reverent life. What we see here is a musician showing his age, but wearing it as a badge of honor.
There are points in the album, which is full of down-tempo gospel and blues-inspired folk, in which the instrumentation becomes less important that Leonard's hypnotizing voice. It has as much character as a gnarled oak tree, but is delivered with the tenderness of a lover. Tracks like "Lullaby" float the listener down a river on a makeshift raft with a harmonica: the music pushing the album forward, Leonard stepping in only to steer you along.
Fans of Toms Waits' quirkiness (sans circus side-show, plus cathedral gospel choir) will have a lot to look for in this record. Some songs are more up than others, others more down. But front to back, Leonard Cohen offers a deep experience to the listener. Put this record on when you want to relax, zone out, be sad, contemplate, or just sit down and listen to a story from grandpa.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (Columbia/Sony Music)"
Cool Music (Italy) by Peppo Delconte, February 28, 2012
Umore: MISTICO
Sempre più vecchio e pigro, Leonard Cohen il genio di Montreal si fa aiutare da una miriade di collaboratori giusto per dare quei tocchi "jazzy" e country che colorano delicatamente le rime semplici e misteriose che da una cinquantina d'anni (!) raccontano il suo mondo. Eppure, alla fine il risultato è ancora una volta un capolavoro tutto suo. La "silhouette" di profeta-peccatore, domina solitaria in questi rituali di conversazione con se stesso, con la Morte, con l'Ignota Divinità... Quella voce, ogni volta più profonda e sussurrante, inchioda l'ascoltatore a qualcosa che è sempre più poesia e meno musica; e vien da benedire i coretti delle bravissime Webb Sisters, che in qualche modo aiutano a rintracciare le linee melodiche, così essenziali e così arcane, che altrimenti non si riuscirebbe quasi a contattare nella sua roca dizione. Ecco, la voce di Cohen più che cantare declama i suoi versi; incarnando rime puntuali e sorprendenti come quelle d'una filastrocca. In realtà, più che filastrocche sono preghiere, mantra, litanie che (seppur venate d'autoironia) parlano di peccato e redenzione, disperazione e gioia mistica.
Ma dai Leonard, stai scherzando? Ci prendi tutti in giro? O ci stai ipnotizzando con la tua voce? Confusi dal balletto dei nomi (sacri) e dei pronomi (io, tu, lei, Lui...), ci rifugiamo nel tuo indistruttibile "humour": "I love to speak with Leonard/He's a sportman and a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard/living in a suit". Forse ci hai troppo intimorito, parlando di e con la Morte (anche se a 78 anni è comprensibile). Scusa, ma non tutti si sentono pronti a incontri tipo Settimo Sigillo; non tutti se la sentono di attraversare il buio più buio o la follia più totale con il coraggio con cui lo sai fare tu, e uscirne intatto con la più essenziale delle parole: Amen. E così sia, vecchio seduttore, "pigro bastardo che abita in un abito". Comunque, una volta compiuto quest'incredibile viaggio sonoro di Old Ideas; una volta confermato l'immutabile talento del poeta prigioniero della Torre delle canzoni; una volta che persino le classifiche di vendita di mezzo mondo testimoniano l'ennesimo successo (per un progetto che non poteva essere più lontano dalle logiche del mercato), un dubbio ci tormenta: siamo forse alle ultime pagine del libro? Forse Cohen non ha più voglia di regalarci le sue illuminanti meditazioni? La risposta è sospesa in chiusura dell'album: "ancora non proprio/forse quando raggiungiamo il fondo". Thanks, Leonard!
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (Columbia/Sony Music)"
Cool Music (Italy) by Peppo Delconte, February 28, 2012
Mood: MYSTIC
Growing old and lazy, Leonard Cohen's genius Montreal gets help from a host of employees just to give those touches "jazzy" and country coloring delicately simple rhymes and mysterious that some fifty years (!) Tell the his world. Yet, the end result is once again a masterpiece all its own. The "silhouette" of a prophet-sinner, dominates in these rituals solitary conversation with himself, with Death, with the Unknown Deity ... That voice, each time more deeply and whispered, pinning the listener to something that is more poetry and less music, and one is inclined to bless the choruses of bravissime Webb Sisters, who in some way help to trace the melodic lines, and so essential so arcane, that would not otherwise be able to contact almost hoarse in his diction. Here, Cohen's voice singing rather than declaims his verses, embodying precise rhymes and surprising as those of a nursery rhyme. In fact, more than nursery rhymes are prayers, mantras, chanting that (although veined irony) speak of sin and redemption, despair and joy mystical.
But by Leonard, are you kidding? We take all around? Or are you hypnotized by your voice? Confused by the Ballet of the names (sacred) and pronouns (I, you, her, him ..), we take refuge in your indestructible "humor": "I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's in lazy bastard / living in a suit". Perhaps we have too intimidated, and talking with Death (although 78 years is understandable). Sorry, but not everyone feels ready to meetings like Seventh Seal, if not all feel able to go through the darkest of dark or utter madness with the courage with which you know you do, and come out intact with the simplest of words: amen. So be it, old seducer, "lazy bastard who lives in a dress." However, once made this incredible audio journey of Old Ideas, once confirmed the unchanging talent of the poet prisoner of the Tower of the songs, and once even the sales charts across the world bear witness to yet another success (for a project could not be farther from the logic of the market), a question haunts us: Are we the last pages of the book? Perhaps Cohen no longer wants to give us his enlightening meditation? The answer is suspended in the album closer, "still do not own / Maybe when we reach the bottom." Thanks, Leonard!
"New Music: Estelle, Leonard Cohen and Fun."
Leonard Cohen - "New Ideas". No AARP activities for Leonard Cohen (of course that might be because he's Canadian), even though he's 77. I'm not even sure what prompted me to listen to this album as I do not believe I have ever experienced Leonard for more than a song here and there, but I was not disappointed. His voice rivals James Earl Jones and Barry White, and he has some really beautiful backup singers to complement his deep, gravelly tone. He was a writer and a poet before breaking into music, so his lyrics are beautiful, as well. This album was a happy discovery for me.
If you like: Hmm, he has been compare to Bob Dylan, although I don't hear it. He's pretty unique.
Tracks to try: "Anyhow," "Come Healing," "Different Sides"
"Leonard Cohen releases new album"
Vox Magazine by Chris Roll, February 15, 2012
Deep-voiced Canadian legend delivers with Old Ideas
As singers and songwriters go, Leonard Cohen is one of the most fascinating. Canadian by birth, Jewish by upbringing and an ordained Buddhist monk by choice, Cohen's background is as diverse as his musical career. His 12th studio album, Old Ideas, released two weeks ago, is currently No. 3 on Rolling Stone's Top 40 albums.
Cohen's voice has changed over the years, as has his musical style. In the late 1960s, he recorded soulful folk songs like "Suzanne" and "Bird on a Wire" in a strikingly nasal voice reminiscent of Bob Dylan. By the '80s, his voice had lowered into a cynical snarl, as he growled out such moody gems as "First We Take Manhattan" and his most-lauded and covered "Hallelujah." Now, at 77, his voice is as weathered as old shoe leather but is far from worn out. True, he can no longer belt out his classics with the gusto of his younger days, but with Old Ideas, he reminds the audience that the words mean more than the voice.
The ten tracks on Old Ideas range from heartrending ("Show Me the Place") to introspective ("Going Home") to just plain funky ("Darkness"). Cohen often tends to speak rather than sing, having a one-sided conversation with his audience as he imparts his words of sardonic wisdom. And, as usual, Cohen surrounds himself with excellent musicians and backup vocalists, achieving the perfect balance of words and music.
As the name implies, Old Ideas sometimes seems to be a retread of prior material, as "Crazy to Love You" sounds quite a bit like "If It Be Your Will," from Cohen's 1985 album, Various Positions. However, the sheer beauty of his lyrics, and the powerful emotions they churn up, make even derivative material sound fresh, and the majority of the tracks have a fun, experimental quality to them, as Cohen seems to be enjoying himself immensely.
Overall, Old Ideas is an excellent milestone in Cohen's full and expansive career, and it serves to make the audience salivate for his next musical masterpiece.
"NEW ON DISC: Is Cohen slowin' down?"
Let's get the Leonard Cohen jokes out of the way.
Is he ever going to die? And if so, will he keep on making records?
Technically, his brand new Old Ideas has the metabolism of a hibernating frog, but then again, he always had that. In fact, it's his trademark. So I guess the answer is, he's always been dead.
OK, not funny, I know. But I'm just kidding.
I love the diminutive Canadian Dustin Hoffman look-alike with my heart's entirety. His show at the Palace two years ago won a place in my all-time top three list.
Old Ideas, however, shows a marked drop in his heart rate, and frankly, I'm worried. I know we all gotta go, but Leonard, please, a few dozen more albums, if you don't mind.
The musical backing is nothing new. It's spare, even extremely spare, with a general feeling of gentleness, calling to mind the pads of cats' paws on a freshly waxed artesian Italian table from Roche Bubois. The songs are haunting and poignant, yet the pain is never too painful, the passion never too hot. And there are plenty of regrets, which has always been one of the best things about Cohen's music.
Lyrically, Cohen isn't close to being dead.
"Had to go crazy to love you/you who were never the one/Whom I cashed through the souvenir heartache/Her braids and her blouse all undone." Awesome.
"I caught the darkness drinking from your cup/I said: Is this contagious?/You said: Just drink it up."
So, like Shakespeare would have us do, we drink, getting drunk on each other. And on Leonard Cohen. Do Dylan or Waits come close to capturing the poison of intimacy? Yes, but neither nails it the way Lenny C does.
"Show me the place/Where you want your slave to go/I've forgotten, I don't know/Show me the place/For my head is bending low." Hmmm. You don't think he's suggesting oral sex, do you?
You gotta wonder how good he is/was in bed with the ladies. I'll bet he's the gold standard of pillow talk and whispers. On with the quotes.
"It's a shame and it's a pity"/The way you treat me now/I know you can't forgive me/But forgive me anyhow."
Wow, I was saying the exact same thing to someone just the other day. Only I wasn't as poetically articulate. That I leave to Lenny C.
Here's a campaign promise: I will vote for the presidential candidate who vows to decree that Leonard Cohen is not allowed to die. Ever.
"Leonard Cohen: 'Old Ideas'"
Musical Performance: 5 out of 5 - Sound Quality: 4 out of 5 - Overall Enjoyment: 5 out 5
Leonard Cohen is a poet, novelist, painter, and singer-songwriter, and a figure of such sartorial grace that he makes even Bryan Ferry look a bit shabby. He's a Companion of the Order of Canada (one of several honors he's received there), and in 2008 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His standing as a poet in music puts him in the same category as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, both of whom are better known but no more widely respected. Cohen, born in Montreal in 1934, has seven years on both of those singer-songwriters, and, like them, is writing about mortality, romance, spirituality, and the mysteries of aging.
Old Ideas is only Cohen's 12th studio recording in 44 years, and it may be, in "Going Home," the voice of God calling him "a lazy bastard / Living in a suit / But he does say what I tell him," or it might be Cohen's alter ego. As he approaches the end of his life, he tells us that he's going someplace better "without the costume that I wore." On Old Ideas, Cohen often admits his faults with a shrug and a resigned chuckle; he seems at peace, even when singing of harsh truths. In "Darkness," he confides that "The present's not that pleasant / Just a lot of things to do," yet his tone as he sings those words seems both amused and expectant -- he'll take whatever comes his way.
Cohen's voice has gotten smokier with age; at times he half recites his lyrics in a near whisper. But when he gets hold of a melody, as in "Show Me the Place," his singing is fragile and beautiful. In "Amen" he captures something of Tom Waits's tobacco rasp, and in "Darkness" he has the aged wisdom of an old blues singer. He sings "Crazy to Love You" in a way that would do Willie Nelson proud, and Nelson would also be proud to claim one of the disc's best lines: "Crazy has places to hide in / Deeper than saying goodbye."
Most of the songs on Old Ideas are sparsely arranged; three female harmony singers are the only apparent extravagance. In fact, the music is rich in detail that reveals its layers over time. Cohen used a number of different producers for the recording, and several studios, but the mastering, by Doug Sax and Robert Hadley, has given Old Ideas a consistent sound and feel. No single musician calls attention to him- or herself, but every sound, from the organ washes in "Darkness" to the soft acoustic-guitar notes throughout, is exquisitely right. The uncluttered recording lets rumbling bass guitars ring out clearly, backing voices unfurl their full richness, and acoustic guitars cradle Cohen's voice.
Cohen has always dealt with spiritual issues in his songs, and in the 1990s he spent five years in a Zen Buddhist monastery. Old Ideas shows a comfort with religion that people of any faith, or even none, should find moving, probing, and profound. The entire disc looks at matters of life, death, and love with ease and humor; in addressing those issues, Cohen's voice is moving, deeply reassuring, and wise.
"Mar. 2012 albums: Old Ideas-Leonard Cohen (Sony)"
No one with an ounce of self-esteem would ever admit to mistaking 77-year-old Leonard Cohen for 62-year-old Tom Waits, but they sure sound alike on "Amen," the second cut on Cohen's first studio album in eight years. The crafty Canadian's baritone has been deterioriating for four decades, so he's simply gotten to where Waits is at through calculation, and when he sings "tell me when I'm clean and sober," you imagine what Waits went through when he finally did just that. What makes it unmistakably Cohen is the slow, plodding tempos, the sweet female backup, and the crystalline sentiments. Since he's a Buddhist, the death obsession that characterizes the album has a matter-of-fact quality, making it less scary than that last Johnny Cash record, though it also makes it less indelible. Still, I hope I'm this horny when I'm his age, and as willing to sing about it.
"Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (Album)"
Chemical Magazine by Morgan Davies, February 23, 2012
4.5 / 5 - Excellent
Leonard Cohen is a poet. That has, and whilst he still graces this earth with his presence, will always be the case. In the mid-sixties Cohen took up a guitar so as to have his poetry noticed, and it worked. With similar lyrical prowess to Dylan, Cohen has been crooning to us for almost fifty years; often sad but always beautiful poems through a gritty, hard voice.
Albums such as I'm Your Fan show how much respect there is for Cohen in the music industry, with a whole array of artists (including the likes of R.E.M, James and Nick cave) covering their favourite songs of his.
This being the case, Cohen's twelfth studio album and first new songs since 2004, have caused quite a buzz. His world tour, starting in 2008, was equally as anticipated, but much harder to get hold of! Old Ideas, as the title suggests, is not a new Cohen; we do not get a fresh and optimistic out-look on life from it; but would we want that? Cohen himself described the album as a "manual for living with defeat" which is about right; it gives us ten slow and solemn tracks, all accompanied by a couple of instruments max, with Cohen's gravelly, aged voice rumbling out his poetry.
On the track "The Darkness" Cohen sings "I have no future/I know my days are few" and this is perhaps one of the most prevalent themes on the seventy-seven year olds new album. Death, as it has been in the past, plays its part as Cohen's muse along with ideas of betrayal, regret and religion. However, as with so much of Cohen's work, this album is not limited to morbidity in every song; there is always hope and love in his work, (though it may be hard to pick out from his strangled voice) such as in the song Amen: "Tell me again when I'm clean and sober/Tell me again when I've seen through the horror Tell me again Tell me/Over and Over/Tell me that you want me then."
This album takes you to a dark bar, it puts a whiskey in one of your hands and a cigarette in the other and asks you to sit back and listen whilst waitresses serve Martinis and Manhattans to single men in suits surrounding you. It demands to be heard live, so you can see the man bearing his soul (without an ounce of pretentiousness). It as an album where the lyrics need to be heard, and whilst the music is well placed and melodic, it is Cohen's voice that makes this.
Without a doubt this is one of Leonard Cohen's best pieces of work in the last twenty-five years and for any eagerly anticipating fan, this will not be a disappointment. For any non-fan, this album may not prove the most easily accessible; for use of a better word, it is raw. However, give it a chance and this album may surprise you, if not for its mellow melodies, then for the soulful openness in Cohen's voice and lyrics.
"Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas' is one to listen to from start to finish"
How often do you hear an album that you love from start to finish?
Of late, one such example for me has been Leonard Cohen's "Old Ideas." It's an instant classic, in my opinion.
This 41-minute disc was created by a 77-year-old Canadian who has produced just 12 albums in a 45-year career. Nevertheless, Cohen is one of the most admired and influential songwriters in music. "Suzanne," "Famous Blue Raincoat," "Bird On A Wire" and "Hallelujah" are among his best and most-covered songs.
Now, in a late career renaissance, he offers "Old Ideas." It begs to be listened to in its entirety. It's a late-night album, when sleep can't--or won't--come. It feels like a man whispering his fears, regrets and still-vibrant hopes to a lover who is less than understanding or more than a little tired of his failings.
It begins with the songwriter addressing himself: "I love to speak with Leonard/He's a sportsman and a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard/Living in a suit."
With titles such as "Amen," "Show Me The Place" and "Darkness," Cohen takes you on a tour of a man near the end of the line who has made mistakes. Though haunted by regrets, he still has some reservoir of hope that life will go on.
At one point, Cohen calls this a "penitential hymn." It is hard-earned wisdom.
"Behold the gates of mercy/In arbitrary space/And none of us deserving/The cruelty or the grace."
The music is spare and rightfully so. This is a quiet album that revels in contrasts: darkness and light, sin and redemption, Cohen's gravelly vocals and the Webb sisters angelic backups. The few solos stand out as a relief from the hard edge.
But it isn't a gloomy or downbeat album. It is the product of life and all of its twists and turns. In its own way, it is a celebration of life. Bravo, Mr. Cohen. And thanks.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"LEONARD COHEN | 'Old Ideas'"
Imagem do Som (Portugal) by Maria João Teles Grilo, March 10, 2012
Rating: 7/10
Em 2008, Leonard Cohen viu-se forçado a abandonar o seu eremitério e regressar aos palcos do mundo numa longa turné cuja efusiva receção acordou as celestiais e outrora entorpecidas filhas de Zeus e Mnemosine que, com as suas flautas e liras, sempre inspiraram o poeta e músico canadiano, acabando por ditar o surgimento do seu décimo segundo álbum de originais, Old Ideas.
Sucedendo-se a Dear Heather após um hiato de sete anos, Old Ideas é um elegíaco regresso ao passado (o título é, de facto, uma profecia que se cumpre por si mesma) que, através de novas canções, nos permite revisitar o legado coheniano tão admiravelmente presente em clássicos como "Suzanne", "Dance Me To The End Of Love" e "Hallelujah". Trata-se de um álbum fundado numa instrumentação minimalista e soturna que bebe paulatinamente da fonte de vários géneros musicais desde o blues ao folk, passando pelo pop, pelo gospel e pela música cigana. Esta serve de mero acessório a uma voz cavernosamente grave (ao estilo de um Tom Waits) e monocórdica que declama ou sussurra cada verso de forma escrupulosa e paternal, sendo suavizada por harmonias etéreas erigidas por aveludadas vozes femininas (sobejamente previsíveis nas composições do músico), as quais emanam uma dimensão religiosa de expiação e perdão.
Porém, tanto a instrumentação quanto a voz da persona de Cohen são condiçãopara a graciosidade melódica que paira sobre todas as faixas, a qual contrasta com a profunda solenidade da mensagem veiculada pelo bardo.
À semelhança de Bob Dylan ou Johnny Cash, o cerne da música de Leonard Cohen reside nas suas poéticas letras. Em perfeita sintonia com o seu já extenso corpo de trabalho, Old Ideas é mote para a (auto)reflexão, com um twist de humor sardónico e matizes de pessimismo, sobre a fraqueza e o caráter dual do ser humano, a reverência à Palavra de Deus e a espiritualidade, o prazer e a sexualidade, o sofrimento e a mortalidade, tendo como pano de fundo a simbólica imagística das escrituras do Antigo Testamento, presença essa particularmente notória em "Amen".
Através de tais incursões por assuntos que emparelham o profano e o sagrado, o sexual e o sepulcral, o poeta propõe-se a escrever canções de amor pautadas pela obsessão romântica e a mitigação do desejo carnal ("Crazy To Love You"), hinos de perdão destinados à purificação do corpo e do espírito ("Anyhow") e um manual sobre como viver com a derrota, resultante do contágio do pecado e da fé desconcertada ("Come Healing"), porventura em modo de preparação para a derradeira viagem, referida sob a forma de metáfora em "Going Home", "Show Me The Place" e "Darkness".
Aclamado como o álbum mais coeso e sólido de Leonard Cohen desde I'm Your Man, é um dado adquirido que Old Ideas propiciará aos admiradores e conhecedores da obra desta figura arquetípica momentos espirituosos de revelação e iluminação, cada vez menos ao alcance das ambições da música popular de hoje.
"LEONARD COHEN | 'Old Ideas'"
Imagem do Som (Portugal) by Maria João Teles Grilo, March 10, 2012
Rating: 7/10
In 2008, Leonard Cohen was forced to leave his hermitage and return to the stage in a long tour of the world whose effusive receção agreed and once the heavenly numb daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who, with their flutes and lyres, have always inspired the poet Canadian musician and, ultimately dictate the appearance of their twelfth studio album, Old Ideas.
Succeeding to Dear Heather after a hiatus of seven years, Old Ideas is an elegiac return to the past (the title is in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy by itself) that, through new songs, allows us to revisit the legacy coheniano so strikingly present in classics like "Suzanne", "Dance Me To The End Of Love" and "Hallelujah." This is an album based on a minimalist instrumentation and gloomy drinking slowly from the source of many musical genres from blues to folk, through pop, gospel and music by gypsy. This merely serves as an accessory to a voice cavernosamente severe (in the style of a Tom Waits) and monotone or whispers that recites each verse scrupulously and paternal, and ethereal harmonies tempered by velvety erected by female voices (widely expected in the compositions of the musician), which emanate from a religious dimension of atonement and forgiveness.
However, both the instrumentation and the voice of the persona of condiçãopara Cohen is a melodic grace that hovers over all the tracks, which contrasts with the deep solemnity of the message conveyed by the bard.
Like Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash, the centerpiece of Leonard Cohen's music lies in its poetic lyrics. In tune with its already extensive body of work, Old Ideas is the motto for (self) reflection, with a twist of sardonic humor and shades of pessimism about the weakness and the dual character of human beings, the reverence to the Word of God and spirituality, pleasure and sexuality, suffering and mortality, having as background the symbolic imagery of the Old Testament scriptures, particularly noticeable in the presence of "Amen."
Through such incursions into subjects that match the profane and the sacred, the sexual and the burial, the poet proposes to write love songs guided by romantic obsession and mitigation of carnal desire ("Crazy To Love You"), hymns of forgiveness for the purification of body and spirit ("Anyhow") and a manual on how to live with defeat, resulting from the contagion of sin and faith staggered ("Come Healing"), so perhaps in preparation for the final journey, under that the form of metaphor in "Going Home", "Show Me The Place" and "Darkness."
Hailed as the album more cohesive and solid from Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man, is an established fact that Old Ideas would give fans and knowledgeable of the work of this archetypal figure witty moments of revelation and illumination, increasingly within the reach of the ambitions of popular music today.
"CD Reviews: Janiva Magness, I See Hawks in L.A., Leonard Cohen and Altan"
4 stars
Leonard Cohen - "Old Ideas" - Columbia
After a couple of meandering albums in the '00s, Cohen is back in top sardonic form on his best effort since 1992's "The Future." There's not a lot of future, apocalyptic or otherwise, to contemplate on this one, though.
As the title indicates, this collection has a backward-looking, elegiac vibe; at 77, Cohen is naturally reassessing and turning inward, often pleading for forgiveness (but usually on his own selfish terms).
The easygoing but rich orchestrations here recall the deceptively complex musical adventurousness he's snuck into his recordings from the start - a jazzy horn here, Gypsy violin there, female choruses all over the joint.
Of course, it's the macadam-throated poet's dark, yearning lyrics that have always been prominent, and on "Old Ideas" he faces mortality with a high degree of sophisticated, cool regret.
"Sometimes I'd head for the highway/ I'm old and the mirrors don't lie/ But crazy has places to hide in/ Deeper than saying goodbye," Cohen growls at one point.
You've got us praying for you Leonard, once again, to seek out more of those places before that final toodle-oo.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
QRO Magazine by James Burgmann, March 7, 2012
Rating: 9.0
Leonard Cohen falls into that rare category of superlative genius, perhaps only accompanied by Tom Waits (QRO album review). Like the latter, he has aged with grace; Old Ideas embodies this. Instead of tiredly reclining into his twilight, the 77-year-old Canadian musician/poet/novelist/monk embarked on a mammoth global tour and has now released his strongest album since I'm Your Man (1988). But what can you say about Mr. Cohen? The man is an enigma, and so is the humorously entitled album - his most overtly spiritual record to date. Yet, there is a newfound tenderness and sincerity, which until now he has been hidden beneath elusive poetics. Moreover, it is both his least bleak and acoustically focussed album in 30 years.
That being said, the big, often-midi-file-sounding band is still dominant and discernible from the opening notes. The introductory lines of "Going Home" depict an optimistic, albeit weary, old man, "Going home without my sorrow / Going home some time tomorrow / Going home to where it's better than before." The banjo-plucked "Amen" nicely follows, granting a suitable destination for the opening song, a place where a love and death collide: "Tell me again when I'm seeing through the horror / Tell me that you want me then." "Show Me the Place", easily the album's finest track, is an evocative hymn of spiritual suffering. Here, Cohen's unfathomably deep voice recites over delicate piano the unforgettable lines, "Show me the place / Where the word became a man / Show me the place / Where the suffering began." "Darkness" somehow manages to add something new to the effete twelve-bar blues chord progression: chunky Spanish-guitar pull-offs, funky bass lines, and suggestively debauch lyrics such as, "I caught the darkness / Drinking from your cup."
Thus far, he manages to execute 'the filth' stylishly, but fails on the jazzy "Anyhow", a less impressive descendant of the "Tower of Song". Cohen immediately revives the album by heart-warmingly strapping on a guitar (entirely unaccompanied) on "Crazy to Love You". This is a wonderful homage to his beginnings as an acoustic singer-songwriter, scented strongly with the odours of "Chelsea Hotel #2". "Come Healing" revisits spiritual themes with overwhelming passion. The backing vocals here could not be better and nor could Cohen's lyrics: "O troubled dust concealing / An undivided love / The heart beneath is teaching / To the broken heart above."
The final three tracks are a beautiful collage displaying Cohen's flexibility as he switches genres. "Banjo" is another refiguring of the twelve-bar blues, given a folk, slide-guitar treatment; an original sense of melody is carved-out on the grandfatherly, sleepy ballad, "Lullaby"; the closing track, "Different Sides", delves into the atmospheric funk/dark electro, not dissimilar to "Everybody Knows" or "Waiting for the Miracle". Old Ideas could possibly be Cohen's final offering, and certainly one of his best.
"Leonard Cohen :: Old Ideas"
Old Ideas, Leonard Cohen's first studio release since 2004's Dear Heather, sets a new paragraph in what has been an exhilarating late chapter in a lengthy career. After breaking with his management following an ugly legal battle that left him essentially penniless, Cohen embarked on a lengthy tour, selling out arenas throughout Europe and his native Canada. Though always revered among his fellow songwriters-his work has been covered by everyone from Willie Nelson to Antony to Jonathan Richman-Cohen's public profile has risen steadily in recent years. For many, Old Ideas is the first Cohen album to arrive amidst the smoke and lights of anticipation; for those who have spent the past few years trekking through the songwriter's back pages, it's a strange reprieve to have him come to us.
That relationship, between the master and devotee, is a major theme across Old Ideas. In brushed hymn "Show Me the Place," Cohen gently begs God's guidance through dark hours. "The troubles came, and I saved what I could save / A shred of light, a particle, a wave," he sings. Cohen holds that wave of light like a lantern through the fog, and the clouds break onto the chorus: "Show me the place / Help me roll away the stone ... Show me the place / Where you want your slave to go," he sings, the sustained rumble of his voice dropping on the word "slave." It's a shocking moment, sung through teeth grinding in resistance, and it only becomes more shocking several bars later, when Cohen repeats the word with all the sweet reverence of a lover. Opener "Going Home" comes across as a song of love and duty between God man, as Cohen, singing from the perspective of the divine, lovingly calls himself a lazy bastard. He is a master ironist, but both songs feel reverent, honest, direct, paeans to simplicity and the old idea of pleasurable obedience. "I'm tired of choosing desire / I've been saved by a blessed fatigue," he sings over a handful of guitar on "Crazy to Love You."
Which isn't to say that Old Ideas is lacking in humor. The seventy-seven year-old Cohen is perhaps at his best when playing the spurned lover. "You said you've never loved me / Could you love me anyhow?" he sings with a grin in "Anyhow." He bounces the b's in the chorus of "Banjo" with easy charm, while New Orleans brass and cooing female vocals back him up.
Though it's not without its dalliances, Old Ideas largely eschews the drum machines and smooth jazz cliches that have long been a part of his sound. "Different Sides" mimics "Everybody Knows"' darkstep, dusted by the Webb Sisters' whispering and goosed with organ stabs, and a clipped and delayed banjo line cross-stitches "Amen."
But of course, the music here is nothing more than a vehicle, the beat to which Cohen declaims; even his rightly-celebrated lyrics depend upon their author's articulation. When the New Yorker ran the lyrics to "Going Home" in January as a poem, the words, laid out in a neat column of black type, seemed sophomoric and self-parodic, the non-sequitur caption to a cartoon of the man himself. In ink, that repeated refrain was uncompelling, and by some contemporary semantic trick, therefore preposterous-"I'm going home without my sorrow / Going home some time tomorrow."
But oh then that voice. words
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Rating: B+
It's hard to consider this record without considering the man behind it, so iconic is the status of Leonard Cohen, truly one the most talented and enigmatic songwriters of all time. It would be easy just give it a great review just because it's Cohen when perhaps it's not so deserved, as I feel that Bob Dylan's recent work has. But in truth this really is Cohen at his very best and may even be his best album as a whole. There is a reason why it's received so much more attention both critically and commercially than 2004's Dear Heather.
This may well be Cohen's last album and it's a great swansong for a legendary musician. Its erotic and sad in equal measure and see Cohen coming to terms with his old age and mortality. There's a religious feeling with songs like Amen, complete with a gospel choir backing, and songs about heaven like Going Home, Different Sides and Darkness. Cohen seems as excited as he does fearful about dying. He doesn't know what's coming but he's staying as relaxed as possible.
Throughout he's on top vocal and lyrical form and we really feel for this old man whose had a turbulent and exciting life. Never does this feeling like an old legend hamming it up for a last harah but always a true artist who still has something to say. A truly rewarding record.
"Music: Leonard Cohen Sounds Ready to Die"
Word on Fire by Father Damian Ference, March 2012
4.5 out of 5 stars
Father Damian Ference has added a new record to his collection: Leonard Cohen's recently released Old Ideas. His review of the album yielded 4.5 out of 5 stars, and he explains why, today on the WOF Blog.
An old friend called the other day to tell me that he bought Leonard Cohen's new record, Old Ideas. I asked him what he thought. He said, "It sounds a lot like what Johnny Cash was doing on his last albums." My friend isn't the religious type, so he didn't specifically mention the themes of sorrow, suffering, death, healing, redemption, and mercy, but I knew exactly what he was getting at. I told him, "Well, Cohen is pushing eighty, so that's what's on his mind." He agreed.
Mortality has always been a major theme of Cohen's work, along with God, love, faith, sex, sacrifice, longing, heartache, and hope. And it makes sense that Cohen entitled his latest effort Old Ideas, because he has been writing about these ideas for over fifty years, so there isn't much new here, except for the fact that now, Cohen seems more comfortable than ever dealing with them. Of course, these ideas are much older than him - these are the ideas that are at the very heart of the human experience - they are the ideas that, once distractions are removed, demand all of our attention.
Cohen's voice seems to have gotten deeper on Old Ideas, if that is possible. (It sounds like he's been gargling gravel.) And since he has never had great vocal range, he fittingly experiments with only a few notes on the entire record - but it works.
Anyone who has followed Leonard Cohen's career knows that he loves women, and not always in the right way. He has penned songs about Suzanne, Marianne, Heather, and many others who remain anonymous. On Old Ideas, a remorseful Cohen attempts to reconcile past loves as he admits that his passions often got the best of him. On "Darkness," a track with a bluesy-twang feel, Cohen confesses, "I should have seen it coming/It was right behind your eyes/You were young and it was summer/I just had to take a dive/Winning you was easy/But darkness was the prize." For Cohen, the darkness is sensual pleasure - something that appears to satisfy, but never does. Humbly, he exposes his life-long weakness for what it is.
Again, on "Crazy to Love You," Cohen takes responsibility and admits that he has been what Aristotle calls The Incontinent Man - one who knows what is right, wants to do what is right, but is too weak to do it. In other words, he chose what was pleasurable over what was truly good: "Had to be crazy to love you/You who were never the one/Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache/Her braids and her blouse all undone." Cohen offers a mental picture that even tempts his listener, as he lets us in on the severity of his inner-struggle. But in the last verse he confidently proclaims, "I'm tired of choosing desire" as if to say that he has learned a valuable lesson, making a distinction between what looks good and what actually is good.
On the slow and steady "Amen," Cohen moves from his memory of women to memory itself and he begs over and over to be reminded of the things he is afraid to forget. He recognizes that identity depends upon memory, and that memory is easily lost, so he must fight for it, by constantly pleading, "Tell me again!" The first verse of "Amen" is personal, but as the song builds, so does the scope of the narrative. It takes Cohen almost eight minutes to move from the personal to the communal and eventually to the apocalyptic. In the final verse Cohen sings in his grave and haunting voice, "Tell me again/When the filth of the butcher/Is washed in the blood of the lamb/Tell me again/When the rest of the culture/Has passed thru' the eye of the camp." Like a prophet, Cohen reminds us that suffering and death are inevitable realities, and that redemption comes at a cost.
"Banjo" is one of those songs whose lyrics say one thing while the music says another (like Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks"). Cohen's rich and textured voice is complimented by ethereal back-up vocals and New Orleans-style horns, yet the song itself is sad, as Cohen sings about a "broken banjo bopping on the dark infested sea." The banjo is a metaphor for the beauty, music, and life, which is now broken and bopping up and down in the ocean. Cohen can't figure out how the banjo got there, but he guesses that it was taken by the wave off someone's shoulder, or out of someone's grave. And now that same power that took the banjo out to sea is moving toward Cohen: "It's coming for me darling/No matter where I go/Its duty is to harm me/My duty is to know." Cohen is not naïve or ignorant. He knows death is near, and he seems ready.
The most beautiful and most hopeful track on the new record is, hands-down, "Come Healing." The song begins with the Webb Sisters singing in angelic voice, "O gather up the brokenness/And bring it to me now/The fragrance of those promises/You never dared to vow/The splinters that you carry/the cross you left behind/Come healing of the body/Come healing of the mind." (If I didn't know better, I would use this song at a communal penance service.) Cohen comes in on the second verse over the voices of the women and he sings of mercy, grace and the solitude of longing. It's as if we catch a glimpse of Leonard Cohen's life-story in this, the shortest song on the record.
The real world is anything but easy, and on "Come Healing" Cohen acknowledges that we suffer tremendous hurts along the way - some of our own doing, some the doing of others, and some hurts whose origins remain a mystery. This track acts as a prayer, which is a petition for the deepest kind of healing, the most complete healing - a healing that leaves nothing out - the healing of the body, the mind, the spirit, the limb, the reason, the heart, the Altar, and the Name. And even if you missed it in the lyrics, the harmony, melody and variety of instruments all tell the same story, perhaps even better. (Wear a long-sleeve shirt if you are embarrassed by goose bumps when listening to this one.)
Leonard Cohen isn't a Catholic, but he was raised in Quebec, so he understands the Catholic worldview. And being Jewish, he knows all about God, creation, sin, and the Fall. Like all of us, he longs for redemption and healing, and knows that life does not end when we die, as he sings on an earlier record, "there's a mighty judgment coming." And as one of my priest friends said after we listened to the new record together, "Leonard will have a big smile when he meets the Christ face to face."
Old Ideas is ultimately a collection of songs about a man preparing for death. And in a culture where most artists do everything they can to distract us from thinking about death, or worse, try to convince us that death is the final end, Leonard Cohen gifts us with a prophetic message: momento mori.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
Cool Tivarte (Uruguay) by José Luis Llanes, March 16, 2012
Me dices que el silencio
está mas cerca de la paz que los poemas,
pero si como un regalo
yo te ofreciera el silencio
(porque yo sé lo que es el silencio)
tú dirías
"Esto no es el silencio
es otro poema"
Y me lo devolverías.
(de La caja de especias de la tierra)
El sacerdote ha vuelto eludiendo profecías apocalípticas con el número 12 einicia el año con su doceavo disco de estudio, Old Ideas.
Luego de un largo retiro místico-espiritual y de la exitosa gira que realizara (de la cual hay registro en el dvd "Live in London") para recuperar sus arcas saqueadas por su manager de toda la vida. Cohen retorna con materialnuevo, que fue presentando en esa serie de conciertos.
Sumergirse en él es beber de una copa grave y profunda en la que Cohen desgrana sabiduría de sexo viejo, hombre de semen y poesía. Es unanciano y está al corriente de ello, "No tengo futuro, sé que mis días son pocos, el presente no es tan agradable, sólo un montón de cosas quehacer, pensé que el pasado duraría más, pero la maldita oscuridad también", sabe que la muerte es para siempre, un gemido de eternidad, peroeso no le importa, o sí.
Imagino una charla, "Por que me encanta hablar con Leonard, que es un bastardo con traje puesto" y le pregunto por la carnalidad del amor. "Túquieres cambiar la forma en que hacemos el amor, yo prefiero dejarlo como está" le contesta al vacío de una amante.
Old Ideas es un racconto de su vida, un viaje desde el cielo de su boca que ha paladeado el mundo desde su universo. Y en Old Ideas, no inventa, no sigue modas, ni se aggiorna, tampoco sigue en el ruedo por que le hayan robado cinco millones de dólares.
Y con tranquilidad de diez canciones, recita, narra, susurra y hasta a veces canta y en ese cosmos fluye en gospel, navega en folk, blues y el country y siempre hondo, un mar grave que está triste, porque es su esencia y su paradójica alegría.
Con toques Dylanianos o con el registro de Tom Waits, y la maravillosa poesía de Cohen o "El silencioso" como fue nombrado al ordenarse en untemplo budista zen, nos ofrenda con este bello recorrido a su interior. Todavía le quedan cosas para compartir antes de entrar en el límite exactode la nada. Y sigue elegante, gentleman, conduciendo su traje, conduciendo su música y la paz que ha conquistado en la vida.
Celebremos este trabajo, que no se aprovecha de viejos éxitos, como las decadentes glorias musicales con sus reuniones re-monetizantes deantiguos éxitos, por que no tienen nada mas para decir.
Old Ideas es un gran disco, el de un octogenario con una sensibilidad que más que apagarse, nos ilumina.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
Cool Tivarte (Uruguay) by José Luis Llanes, March 16, 2012
You say that the silence
is more about the peace that the poems,
but if as a gift
I will offer the silence
( because I know what it is the silence )
you say
"This not is the silence
is another poem"
And I devolverías.
(From the Spice Box of the Earth)
The priest has become avoiding prophecies apocalyptic with the number 12 and begins the year with his twelfth album studio, Old Ideas.
After a long retirement mystical-spiritual and successful tour to take place (of which no record in the DVD "Live in London") to recover their coffers plundered by his manager throughout the life. Cohen returns with material again, which was presented in this series of concerts.
Plunging in he is drinking from a cup severe and profound in that Cohen reels wisdom of sex old man semen and poetry. It is an old and is the power of it "No I have future, I know that my days are few, a wail of eternity, but it does not matter, or other.
I imagine a conversation, "For that I love to talk with Leonard, who is a bastard to suit job" and ask for the carnality of love. "You want to change the way that we love, I'd rather leave it as is," he replied the vacuum of a lover.
Old Ideas is a racconto of his life, a journey from the sky in your mouth that has tasted the world from his universe. And Old Ideas, not invented, it is fashion, nor is aggiorna, either still in the ring by which you have stolen five million of U.S. dollars.
And with peace of ten songs, recites, tells, whispers and even at times singing and the cosmos flows in gospel, sailing in folk, blues and country and always deep, a sea grave that is sad, because it is its essence and its paradoxical joy.
With touches Dylanianos or the record of Tom Waits, and the wonderful poetry of Cohen or "silent" and was named to ordered a temple Buddhist Zen, we offering with this beautiful journey to the interior. Still you remain things to share before to enter the limit right from scratch. And still elegant, gentleman, driving his suit, driving his music and the peace that has gained in life.
Celebrate this work, that does not take advantage of old hits, as the decadent glories of music with their meetings re-monetizantes of old hits, for that not have anything more to say.
Old Ideas is a great album, an octogenarian with a sensitivity to more than shut down, we lit.
"Leonard Cohen to shit gold for the rest of life"
Canadians have mixed feelings when it comes to our music history. We can brag about Canadian legends like Rush and Neil Young, but we also must take responsibility for embarrassments like Justin Bieber and Nickelback. But the internationally celebrated songwriter Leonard Cohen will always be a centrepiece of Canadian culture and pride, especially in light of his latest album, Old Ideas, released in late January.
Cohen has been active since 1956 and continues to release material, even at the age of 77. 1967 saw his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, a raw and emotional folk masterpiece. Eleven albums later, Cohen's music has evolved into a cleaner rock-oriented sound while also preserving the intellectual charm of a novelist and poet.
Old Ideas is an appropriate title for the album--the music doesn't experiment or innovate. It just offers a modest collection of songs meant to relax the listener rather than impress or mystify.
The music itself has a gentle feel. Cohen has his usual ensemble of studio musicians, only this time with a much softer tone. The album consists of mostly acoustic guitars and pianos with the occasional use of strings, backup singers, and other sounds. Hardly any percussion is used on the album, which enhances the calm atmosphere that is constantly present.
It seems like Cohen's voice gets deeper with every album. His deadpan style of singing allows him to stand out as an artist, but also turns off many listeners. His voice suits his dark and personal lyrical tone which has been present his whole career.
The problem with Leonard Cohen is that some listeners don't understand him as a musician. And who can blame them? His raspy, atonal voice is fairly unattractive. But his fans understand the personal nature of his music, and realize that the songs he writes can only be heard through his mumbling vocal style.
Ultimately, Old Ideas is a pleasurable listen. It doesn't bring anything new to folk music, but it is what Leonard Cohen fans want to hear. But if you are not already a fan of the Canadian icon, this album won't change your opinion.
"Album Review: Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas'"
ConcertTour.org by Christopher Sushnyk, March 16, 2012
It has been eight years since Leonard Cohen's previous album, and 45 years since his first release back in 1967. In all of that time not a whole lot has changed for the herald of hardship, and Old Ideas sounds a lot like Songs of Leonard Cohen, apart from a voice deepened by age. The expectation here is not so much musical innovation as it is a chance to catch up with an old friend and see what he has to say.
The opener, Going Home, begins with the words "I love to speak with Leonard." While Cohen himself appears to be giving voice to the word of God, insisting that he is but a humble messenger, the sentiment suits his fans just as well. In either case it's a one-way conversation, and many would value Leonard's opinion above that of any deity.
Wherever Cohen gets his material-be it cribbed from a place on high, or hard-earned through his own experiences-he remains a man with many a profound word on suffering. The songs on Old Ideas speak of death as much as love, but even the love songs are put into the past tense. Leonard Cohen has always been an extremely introspective man, but it's different here, and he makes no bones about the reason why. He speaks very openly about the end of his life drawing near. "I ain't got no future. I know my days are few," he says on Darkness, "I thought the past would last me, but the darkness got that too."
Which is not to say that it's a depressing album by an old guy lamenting lost time. He doesn't seem to have a great many regrets about the past-no more than usual-or a want to do it all over, he's just open about the fact that he is in the final phase of his life. He's not done living, as evidenced by the playful attitude on Anyhow, but he's aware that he may be on the next train out of here.
Old though he may be, when you are Leonard Cohen you don't really have to worry about aging gracefully. He started his career with the mind and the maturity of an 80-year-old man, and considering that, he's still not even reached his peak at just 77. Even his voice, now very deep, may only better suit his sexy, dark music.
The album seems somewhat dated musically, but that is neither unexpected nor a particularly bad thing. Organ solos still have their place in our sonic lexicon, and coming from an older bloke the sounds of another era fit in very well.
The music is all quite safe and predictable, but again, you are probably not going to this guy for a fresh new sound, but a perspective. Let me say though that Old Ideas is at least a good record on the merits of its musical prowess, and by and large, Leonard Cohen's sound is as timeless as his poetry-even if not particularly innovative at this stage.
The title Old Ideas seems to have a number of potential meanings. It could be a tongue-in-cheek joke about Leonard's age. It could simply be that some of these songs have been kicking around a while, and he wanted to get around to recording them. It may also be about the subject matter, as he looks back on a long life full of love and loss.
It's definitely not an album to be overlooked, as many releases from living legends can unfortunately be. He hasn't lost a thing to age, but remarkably, he has gained quite a lot. What's more, he's not done sharing his wisdom with the world, and hopefully there is more to come.
"Album review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
Rating: 7.5/10
Usually I wait a few weeks or months before sharing new music, I like to let it sink in, and listen to it a few times, to find out what for me are the most memorable tracks on a particular album.
First of all, I love the album cover artwork! The use of shadows and colours, really work well together. Apparently, it's supposed to be his back garden, so we feel we are seeing him as he really is at home, at work.
Unsurprisingly, Cohen's new album is thematically about becoming old (he is 77). The man is one of my favorite singer-songwriters, and a legend, not just in his native Canada. Leonard Cohen is a poet, not just a musician. Each new album is an event, and a rarity, the long gap between releases brings expectations with it. We know he's spent years working on the lyrics.
Hearing his new material is, as described in the NPR roundtable discussion:
"like getting a phone call from a friend you haven't heard from in a long time, and getting his perspective, and what he's been up to. An intimacy you can't get from anywhere else."
For me, a few of the songs are best suited for those listeners who are my grandparent's age, although I'm sure some will argue all Cohen's work is about mortality, and is universal. Other themes are love, suffering and forgiveness.
Does Leonard Cohen learn anything from writing songs? Does he work out ideas that way? Leonard Cohen as quoted in the guardian.co.uk interview:
"I think you work out something. I wouldn't call them ideas. I think ideas are what you want to get rid of. I don't really like songs with ideas. They tend to become slogans. They tend to be on the right side of things: ecology or vegetarianism or antiwar. All these are wonderful ideas but I like to work on a song until those slogans, as wonderful as they are and as wholesome as the ideas they promote are, dissolve into deeper convictions of the heart. I never set out to write a didactic song. It's just my experience. All I've got to put in a song is my own experience."
To balance the melancholy confessions, there's a little bit of self-referential humor sprinkled into the lyrics of the song Going Home, which is not something I had heard him attempt before, and which took a bit of getting used to:
Lyric: "I love to speak with Leonard. He's a sportsman and a shepherd. He's a lazy bastard. Living in a suit"
As Will Oldham (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) wrote in a recent article in Mojo, that I agree with:
"Somehow he (L. Cohen ) has the ability to shine a light on our finer qualities as people in a way that you feel that you have an alley: even if you're looking at the beautiful and the ugly in the world, you can value it. I can look around at the good and the bad and say, well, this is humanity and I'm going to keep on dealing with it because I have this man who is doing that too"
His 12th studio album I don't think is as haunting as Leonard's best work, but still a hell of a lot better than a lot of other music currently being released, particularly in terms of lyrics. If I had to criticize Old Ideas, it's that I feel like I've already heard the things he confesses on previous albums, maybe he is just feeling the same way? I'm not disappointed, but I'm not feeling he's reinvented himself either, apart from the feeling of being close to death. So as I was saying before, a mature, elderly audience would probably identify the most with Old Ideas in my opinion. His debut album from 1967 when he was a 33-year-old on the other hand is more relatable for this reviewer. Having said that, I've always sensed Leonard was a wise old man, even when he was young, maybe that is why I felt he hadn't changed much on the new album.
The production on a couple of tracks felt cheap and similar to his last studio album Dear Heather, which is a pity, and which somehow made a few songs sound less powerful, and less profound. Still, was a lot better than 2004's Dear Heather, which Cohen admitted to releasing unfinished a few years back due to pressure from the record company.
I liked about half the album tracks on Old Ideas. My favorite tunes are acoustic, this style for me has always worked well with his soft spoken voice, and reminded me of his earliest stripped down acoustic work from the 1960s.
Favorite lyric:
"I used to love the rainbow. And I used to love the view. Another early morning, I'd pretend that it was you."
(funny thing is I misheard the lyric, I like to imagine the last word is "new", which I think would have been more powerful)
According to the new interview in Mojo, Leonard Cohen wants to complete a follow-up before it's too late.
Old Ideas is return to form, and in my opinion the best new material L Cohen has put out since 2001's Ten New Songs.
"ALBUM REVIEWS: Recent and Recommended"
Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas' (Sony) Cohen doesn't break new ground on 'Old Ideas,' intoning his poetic laments and soliloquies in a gravely whisper as female background singers harmonize behind him -- and that's just fine. At 77 his voice has never better matched his material, sounding as tested and timeworn as his lyrics. Stunning, as always. Download: Sprawling religious epic "Amen."
"Listen: Leonard Cohen - Darkness"
Forty-four years ago, Leonard Cohen released his first full-length studio album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, and just about a month ago, the man put out his twelfth and highest charting album, Old Ideas. He was 33 years-old when he did this, and I hadn't even reached the point of being a twinkle in my father's eye. Retroactively, each of the first 11 albums have found their way into my various multimedia devices and have been thoroughly enjoyed, to varying degrees.
But back to Old Ideas, Cohen's first release in eight years and a marked surprise to discover at the, ahem, "music store." A quick "purchase," and the album was quickly playing through my Creative Aurvana Live! headphones - before it was quickly stopped. I turned it off because Cohen's voice is ... is something that should be enjoyed with equipment that accentuates the silky, smooth and dark drawl - equal parts sexy and creepy. So in go the V-Moda M-80s.
It's sexy because of the silky and smoothness, and creepy because, well, he's very old and at one point talks about some pretty graphic stuff: "I'm naked and I'm filthy and there's sweat upon my brow, and both of us are guilty anyhow." I say "talks" literally, as Cohen has always walked that line of singing/talking, but it works with the songwriting, better than anybody else who can claim to practice the same vocal style. Don't even argue. Shutup.
Anyway - after listening to this album off and on for a couple weeks now, and while currently on vacation, I thought it pertinent to make you all aware that yes, Cohen is still around and yes, he's still wonderful. Give the album a listen and hope that it's not his last. The track below, Darkness, is a wonderful jazz-inspired song that is both happy and overwhelmingly depressing - portraying a very self-aware Cohen near the end of his life. It's good stuff.
"Fresh Off the Airwaves: Old Ideas by Leonard Cohen"
He is a man with a legendary music career that stretches across five decades, a natural baritone voice that flows like a conversation and volumes of heartbroken yet perennially hopeful lyrics. As he smokes a cigarette and sighs deeply, Leonard Cohen quietly assumes his role as a songwriting legend. His latest album, Old Ideas, was released on Jan. 31 and debuted at No. 1 on Nielsen SoundScan's Top Album Chart. Already a platinum record in his native Canada, the album has now topped the official Album Sales Charts in seven different countries, taking Cohen to new creative and commercial heights.
The arrangements in Old Ideas are minimal and the instrumentals bare. Our attention is focused entirely on Cohen's well-practiced voice and equally amazing lyrics, which transcend the emotions of love, loss, regret and religious salvation - a feat that artists half his age cannot come close to achieving. Throughout Cohen's career, he has both defined and explained what it means to be human through highly reminiscent imagery and playing with the themes of mortality, religion and sensuality. In these 10 tracks, he is as seductive as ever, embodying the same bad boy from Songs of Leonard Cohen nearly 44 years ago. "Dreamed about you baby / You were wearing half your dress / I know you have to hate me / But could you hate me less?" Leonard's voice, so carefully tuned over the years, is a stunning instrument in itself: It is a voice that mimics human yearning. It is powerfully honest in the way that one is compelled to listen as closely as possible.
Cohen declared bankruptcy in 2005 due to misappropriations of his retirement fund by his manager. The impact this has had on his life can be seen closely through "Different Sides," the last song of the album. Through the song, Cohen discusses the possibility of remaining good in a difficult world, as well as how sex impacts relationships. The musician has struggled with depression throughout his life and many of his songs revolve around thoughts of suicide and despair, some darkly comical. Cohen's late-career triumphs at the age of 77 are reminiscent of Bob Dylan's third-act releases at 56 or the late Johnny Cash albums, both of which visit themes of mortality through a curious lens. Old Ideas is aptly named: Cohen's favorite themes - healing, origins, home and endings - take on weight as time passes.
There's a sense of emptiness that Cohen faces in the way that only he can - with smirking irony - as he continues to tackle dark, sometimes disturbing subject matter with uplifting hope and happiness. There is also a definite shadow that comes from accepting death, as well as hints that his life and work are coming to a close. The song "Going Home" appears to both acknowledge and embrace this fact with his habitual humor: "I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard / Living in a suit." His lyrics are those of a poet, cryptic, challenging and yet easy on the ear. The twang of his guitar and the soft touch of his fingers running along the piano keys, minimal and bleak, both follow the tune of his voice, rather than the other way around.
Pay special attention to the song "Crazy to Love You": The gentle plucking of Cohen's acoustic guitar mirrors the softness of his message and the hardships of love. It is written in Cohen's classic flow of spoken-word lyrics. This iteration features Cohen alone and is a return to the classic form of his previous albums, bringing nostalgia to old fans. The song is a piece of difficult confessions, of the sentiment that perhaps makes us the most human - the sentiment of love - and the temporary insanity that it forces us into. It is here that we see his naked age, where the "bad boy" persona backs off a little bit and curbs the eroticism of old that used to be so prevalent. Cohen reassures us that perhaps it is a blessing that with old age comes the calming of those desires so fervent that they drive us to irrationality.
Old Ideas is Cohen's highest debuting album, and despite the album's title, some of its ideas are also refreshingly new. I can only hope that we will all be able to render this creativity and passion for ourselves at 77.
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski, March 24, 2012
In an age where being talentless is the new talent it is nice to have a taste of the good old world in the form of a Leonard Cohen record. Moving to the level of being an information or software culture, there are now often great discrepancies and differences between the mind and the heart. For the most part, we live and breath in a new world, while thinking and feeling in an old one. A record by Cohen surely points to where the heart and soul is. At a time when the majority of those his age are drifting into retirement, the 77 year-old singer/songwriter has put out a good record in his long and storied career.
Luckily, he wears his age well. Dressed in the sharpest of grey suits and fedora, he is still every inch the ladies' man. With his deep, resonant voice in extraordinary condition despite his age, he breathes new life into songs collected under the title of Old Ideas. Even though the new record comes eight years after Dear Heather (Columbia, 2004), in many interviews Cohen has stated that he never stopped working and writing, and being the perfectionist he is, it took him a lot of time to get things right. Despite the double meaning the title may convey, Old Ideas is a trip upon a well trodden path, and refers to subjects that have preoccupied him all of his life: sex, love, religion, God and disappointment, though but not necessarily in the same order. Older and wiser, and with the help of Madonna producer Pat Leonard, Cohen constructs a low-key but resonant instrumental backdrop for his tales of mortality, relationships, longing, dashed hopes and loneliness. These old ideas seem to remain unresolved both for him and probably for most of today's culture.
The album drives at the slowest of speeds and serves as an antidote to a life spent on a beat- the-beat of concrete, the pulse of machines, car alarms, plasma screens and mobile phones. The songs are driven by Cohen's instantly recognizable and unfathomably deep voice as he half sings and half enunciates. Despite that, it is evident that he still radiates a charisma that few singers can match. Wrapped up in that deep baritone, the songs are an intriguing blend of the bitter and the sweet. Judging by the prevailing tone, they are often lullabies that sound soothing, but underneath they carry the weight of sadness, loss and pain. In general, Old ideas is an excellent synthesis of his previous work, combining warmth and humor with visions of darkness, but with occasional brighter glimpses that can be found either in the music or the lyrics.
Rather than making references that would strengthen the stigma of being the "purveyor of bedsit morbidness," Cohen is humorously ironic and self-depracating, which is clear from the first lines of the opening song, "Going Home," a poem first published in the New Yorker magazine and here, is genuinely funny and gentle.:
"I'd love to speak with Leonard,
He's a sportsman and a shepherd,
he's a lazy bastard living in a suit."
The album is packed full with captivating moments from start to finish, with semi-precious stones like the warm "Show me the Place," "Crazy to Love You" and "Different Sides," which find Cohen in an especially sentimental mood. "Amen" is a slow waltz with a melody that closely resembles one of his older songs, "I'm Your Man," and he sings with the same reverence as on one of his most beloved anthems, "Hallelujah." It is a hypnotic and soulful song backed by the angelic voices of the Webb Sisters. "Darkness" is a bluesy track that evokes a melancholic atmosphere on the verge of sliding into threatening doom. The lyrics meditate on mortality, dependence and faith, Cohen's menacing voice sending shivers down the spine to turn this song into an unexpected emotional highlight.
Certainly, Old Ideas conveys immeasurably more experience, wisdom, beauty and character than most artists' output these days. In recent times, Cohen has enjoyed an artistic renaissance with his successful 2008/2009 tour, which enabled him to win over a new audience. That tour and this album are encouraging indications that the magic of Leonard Cohen has never worn off. On the contrary, it seems that his place among deities of celestial songsmiths has been further assured.
Tracks: Going Home; Amen; Show me the Place; Darkness; Anyhow; Crazy to Love you; Come Healing; Banjo; Lullaby; Different Sides.
Personnel: Leonard Cohen: vocal, guitar, programming; Patrick Leonard: producer, programming; Ed Sanders: guitar (9); Sharon Robinson: vocals, synth bass (2, 9); Dana Glover: vocals; Jenifer Warnes: vocals (3); Neil Larsen: Hammond B3, piano, synth bass, percussion, cornet; Robert Corda: violin; Chris Wabich: drums; Jordan Charnofsky: guitar; Bella Santelli: violin; Roscoe Beck: bass; Javier Mas: archilaud; Bob Metzger: guitars; Dino Soldo: horns; Rafael Bernard Gayol: drums; The Webb Sisters: vocals.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Albumul lunii: Old Ideas"
Playboy (Romania) by Eduard Tone, March 19, 2012
Cohen are aproape 78 de ani si de opt ani nu mai intrase în studiou pentru a face o înregistrare noua. La urma urmei, cine se astepta la ceva nou din partea celui care a cântat în poezie aproape tot ce se putea cânta în poezie, adica iubirea - pâna la capatul ei.
La 78 de ani, unii se asaza la masa si musca din felia de pâine, uitând ca sunca de alaturi trebuia pusa pe ea. Altii îsi amintesc perfect ce înseamna dragostea. Mai mult, o traiesc si o cânta.
Cohen e unul dintre acestia. El a scris zece cântece care ti se strecoara în suflet fara sa-ti dai seama. Te trezesti cu ele acolo, mai întâi te revolti, spunând ceva de genul „prostiile astea sunt pentru femei", apoi te lasi dus de val, fiindca un cântec de dragoste à la Cohen are suficient de multe argumente pentru a învinge în ring orice rival, din orice alta zona.
Old Ideas e un album aproape perfect. Elegant, introspectiv si, pe alocuri, surprinzator. Muzica e adaptata perfect poeziei - nu depaseste limitele versului si se muleaza cu gratie peste profunzimile acesteia, transmitând ceea ce Cohen îsi doreste sa transmita odata cu acest nou album, de la serenitatea celor aproape 78 de ani ai sai: vechile idei sunt, de multe ori, cele mai bune.
"Album of Old Ideas"
Playboy (Romania) by Eduard Tone, March 19, 2012
Cohen has nearly 78 years and eight years not entered the studio to make a new record. After all, who expect something new from the one who played with poetry nearly everything they could sing in poetry, or love - until its end.
At 78 years, sits at the table and each bite of the slice of bread, ham with forgetting that she had put on. Others remember perfectly what love means. Moreover, live and play.
Cohen is one of them. He wrote ten songs that creep into your soul without you realize. You find them there, first revolt, saying something like "women are crap", then go with the flow, because a love song to Cohen has enough arguments to defeat any rival in the ring in any other area.
Old Ideas is a nearly perfect album. Elegant, introspective and, at times, surprising. The music is perfectly adapted to poetry - does not go beyond verse and fits gracefully over its depths, transmitting what Cohen wants to convey with this new album, from the serenity of his almost 78 years: old ideas are more Sometimes the best.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
MusicLetter (Italy) by Luigi Lozzi, March 25, 2012
Leonard Cohen sta al cantautorato colto come John Lee Hooker sta a tutte le stagioni del Blues revival e Jimi Hendrix alla chitarra rock. È un punto di riferimento ineludibile per chiunque abbia in animo di amalgamare insieme musica e liriche, e il suo autunno poetico è stato preso a modello anche da schiere di adepti alt-country negli Usa come nel nord Europa. è da oltre quattro decenni il più importante e influente songwriter, addirittura più cristallino e carismatico diDylan, con quella voce da basso profonda, cavernosa e toccante come poche, ma non solo: è anche poeta e scrittore, uno dei più grandi tra i contemporanei. Non molto tempo fa si è concesso un ritorno sulle scene in tour mondiale alla non più tenera età di 74 anni e le 84 date tenute hanno registrato dappertutto il "tutto esaurito". Una dimensione genuina, quella dal vivo, per un artista per il quale il tempo sembra non passare mai, e si potrà comprendere cosa possa significare presentarsi sul palco alla sua età e non perdere un briciolo della propria luminosa grandezza. Così metabolizzati i fasti di una tournée trionfale - si trattava del suo ritorno sulle scene, dopo un'assenza durata quindici anni - Leonard si è dedicato alla preparazione di un nuovo album in studio (a otto anni da Dear Heather,), il dodicesimo, che, alla prova dei fatti, non è affatto peregrino definire uno dei più belli della sua discografia, all'altezza delle migliori cose incise negli anni Settanta. Inciso a 77 anni con l'estro, l'entusiasmo e l'ispirazione probabilmente trovati 'on the road' negli ultimissimi anni. Cohen - perlomeno per l'età, ma non solo per quella - guida la schiera dei grandi vecchi della canzone nordamericana, seguito da Bob Dylan e Neil Young che non hanno alcuna intenzione di abdicare. In più ci piace sottolineare come la produzione artistica di Cohen sia una delle più solide e cristalline dell'intero panorama musicale internazionale. Vi si colgono i frutti di un'esperienza di vita intensa permeata di spiritualità, i testi raccontano dei grandi temi di sempre, la vita e la morte, il sesso e i rapporti umani, con la consueta veste poetica, l'approccio intimista, mutuato dagli chansonnier francesi, e l'ironia di sempre. La sua voce, il crooning - baritonale e dai toni notturni - è addirittura migliorata, così piena di sfumature; le canzoni si vestono di tonalità calde e autunnali, a porgerci questo pugno di "vecchie idee". "un pigro bastardo in giacca e cravatta", così si descrive nell'iniziale ballata minimalista e gospel "Going Home" ("I love to speak with Leonard, he's a sportsman and a shepherd, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit"), e si definisce "straccivendolo del cuore". Segue "Amen" ("Tell me again when the filth of the butcher/ Is washed in the blood of the lamb"), un lungo pezzo dark con il contrappunto di mandolino, archi e fiati, che ci rimanda per impostazione ad "Halleluja"; è quindi la volta della splendida "Show Me the Place" ("Show me the place/ where the word became a man..."), su un tappeto sonoro trasognante del pianoforte. "Darkness" ("I've got no future/ I know my days are few"), grintoso rock blues aperto da un magnifico intreccio di chitarre, è condotto nello stile riconoscibile del cantautore canadese, ed è uno dei brani più musicali dell'album: Leonard in questo caso è accompagnato dagli stessi musicisti che l'hanno assistito in tour negli ultimi anni. Poi la romantica "Crazy To Love You" ("I'm old and the mirrors don't lie / but crazy has places to hide me / that are deeper than any goodbye") con il supporto della chitarra acustica, mentre "Lullaby" è una delicata ninna nanna. A chiudere il disco "Different Sides", perfetta canzone pop dalle sfumature old-fashioned. Tutto, intorno, funziona a meraviglia, dal coro delle Webb Sisters al controcanto diJennifer Warnes, all'Hammond e agli archi, e al resto. Un disco sorprendentemente bello, ed è un incanto per il cuore e per la mente ritrovarsi in compagnia di un poeta così lucido nel muoversi tra memoria e consapevolezza, elegante, e dallo sguardo acuto e penetrante.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas (2012)"
MusicLetter (Italy) by Luigi Lozzi, March 25, 2012
Leonard Cohen's songwriting to read as John Lee Hooker is at all seasons of the Blues Revival and Jimi Hendrix on guitar rock. It is an inescapable point of reference for anyone with a mind to blend with music and lyrics, and his poetic autumn was also modeled by legions of followers alt-country in the U.S. as in northern Europe. For over four decades, the most important and influential songwriters, even more crystalline and charismatic Dylan, with that deep bass voice, hollow and touching as few, but not only: it is also a poet and writer, one of the greatest among his contemporaries. Not long ago it was granted a comeback world tour at the tender age of no more than 74 years and held 84 dates have registered all over the "sold out". A genuine size, that live, for an artist for whom time seems to come, and you can understand what it means to present on stage at her age and not losing a bit of its bright magnitude. So metabolized the glory of a triumphant tour - it was his comeback after an absence offifteen years - Leonard has been working on preparing a new studio album (eight years from Dear Heather), the twelfth, that the evidence shows it is not defining a pilgrim of the most beautiful of his discography, all height of the best things recorded in the seventies. Engraved to 77 years with the talent, enthusiasm and inspiration probably found 'on the road' in the last few years. Cohen - at least for the age, but not just for the - leading the ranks of the great old American song, followed by Bob Dylan and Neil Young who have no intention of abdicating. In addition we like to emphasize the artistic production of Cohen is one of the most solid and clear the entire international music scene. There you are picking the fruits of a life experience permeated with intense spirituality, the lyrics tell of the great themes of all time, life and death, sex and relationships, as with the usual poetic, intimate approach, borrowed from French chanson, and the irony of all time. His voice, crooning - baritone tones night - is even better, so full of nuances, the songs are dressed in warm colors of autumn, to bid this handful of "old ideas". "A lazy bastard in a suit and tie", it is described in the initial minimalist gospel ballad "Going Home" (" I love to speak with Leonard, he's a sportsman and a shepherd, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit"), and is called "rag of the heart." Followed by "Amen" ("Tell me again When the filth of the butcher / Is washed in the blood of the lamb"), a long piece with dark counterpoint mandolin, strings and horns, which we refer for setting a "hallelujah" so it is the turn of the magnificent "Show Me the Place" ("Show me the place / where the word Became a man..."), on a carpet of sound dreamy piano. "Darkness" ("I've got no future / I know my days are Few"), gritty blues rock opened by a wonderful mix of guitars, is conducted in the recognizable style of Canadian singer-songwriter, and is one of the most musical of songs Album: Leonard in this case is accompanied by the musicians who attended the tour in recent years. Then the romantic "Crazy To Love You" ("I'm old and the mirrors do not lie / but crazy has places to hide me / that are deeper than any goodbye") with the support of the acoustic guitar, while "Lullaby" is a gentle lullaby. To close the album "Different Sides", perfect pop song from the old-fashioned shades. All around, it works wonders, from the choir of the Webb Sisters of counterpoint to Jennifer Warnes, Hammond and arches, and the rest. A surprisingly nice to drive, and is a delight for the heart and soul of a poet find himself in the company so shiny in moving between memory and consciousness, elegant, and with a sharp and penetrating.
"Music Appreciation: Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas"
Earlier this year, the 77-year-old Canadian singer/songwriter legend Leonard Cohen released his 12th studio album, Old Ideas. It is also his first new recording in seven years, since Dear Heather in 2004.
I'm aware that such anticipation often leads to either disappointment or blind appreciation. But now that I have given this album almost two months and more than 50 listens, there's still no sign of my excitement abating. In an age when music comes so easily that people are no longer stuck with the same LP, counting the days for the next great release, that's a solid reason to spread the word.
It's not easy to find new passion in something you've been doing for nearly half a century, even if that thing is as cool as music. For that reason, most survivors of the '60s rock and roll scene had either stepped away or gone through radical changes. David Bowie had tried out nearly every music genre he possible could and finally decided to retire and enjoy his life as a happy family man; Bob Dylan is still keeping his promise for a "never-ending tour," but he is also good at surprising his audience with a crazy new rendition of every old song; Robert Plant, the iconic vocalist of Led Zeppelin immersed himself into bluegrass; while Lou Reed turned his guitar into a heavy metal machine and teamed up with Metallica.
Unlike his peers, Cohen somehow managed to keep his music undisturbed. The ambiance he established in his debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen in 1968 still lingers, the theme still prevails, and the way he organizes his music has became so familiar and recognizable. But this kind of persistence does not imply that he hasn't improved. Changes are just more subtle, often reflect on the subtext between his lyrics and the depth of his voice.
And Cohen, who knows his journey better than anyone, gave this new album an ironic name: Old Ideas.
From song titles like "Amen," "Darkness," "Come Healing," and "Crazy To Love You," it's easy to conclude that Cohen is indeed still hovering around "old ideas" like religion and salvation, life and death, love and desire, hope and despair, etc. But when you really start to listen, you'll soon notice the wisdom, humor and self-awareness that one can only gain through the lapse of time; not to mention his aged voice has became more real and convincing than ever.
As usual, Cohen never hesitates to share his confusion, confrontation, and endless inquiry about religion and humanity. He sings with such honesty and righteousness, his words are so direct and beautifully crafted that they stab your heart and rub your mind at the same time. As Cohen himself sings in the song "Amen:" "I'm listening so hard that it hurts."
The opening song "Going Home" is a conversation between Cohen and God, where Cohen describes himself as a "lazy bastard living in a suit" who wants to write a "manual for living with defeat," and delivers God's words because "he doesn't have the freedom to refuse." In the song "Crazy to Love You," he is struggling between his desire and fear for love. "I had to go crazy to love you, you who are never the one whom I chased through the souvenir heartache," he whispers, "but crazy has places to hide in that are deeper than any goodbye." Then with the song "Come Healing" Cohen sings a prayer to all the brokenness, "Come healing of the spirit, come healing of the limb." There are also light moments when the music gets a little bit funky ("Banjo") or when the lyric pitches a lover's quarrel, "both of us say there are laws to obey, yeah but frankly I don't like your tune" ("Different Sides").
Confucius once said, "At fifty I knew the will of heaven; at sixty my ears were obedient for truth, at seventy I could follow the wishes of my heart without doing wrong." At this age, Cohen has had enough laughter and tears, crossed enough rivers and seen through enough horrors to learn a simple truth: life isn't about winning. When facing the harsh side of life, tenderness can sometimes be even more effective than a razor's edge.
Cohen admitted in a recent interview that although to others everything he does seems seamless, to him writing a song is never a careless act: "I always felt I was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get the song together. I never had the sense that I was standing in front of a buffet table with a multitude of choices. I felt I was operating in more like what Yeats used to say was the 'foul rag and bone shop of the heart'."
That's why people don't really care that he sometimes go off-key, or his finger-picking guitar is not perfect, or the instruments and background chorus can be a little out of place. After all these years, when songwriting can be as easy as a game for him, Cohen is still scraping words from the bottom of his heart.
And that's all that counts.
"Master class"
* * * * (4 stars)
Old Ideas * Leonard Cohen
Dim the lights, pour yourself some Scotch and enjoy the solitude with Leonard Cohen's latest album, Old Ideas. Whether you have been following the legendary Canadian musician/poet's works since the 1970s, or you have just acquainted yourself with the depth of his words, it is almost impossible to be immune to the 77-year-old's brand of music.
This 10-track album deals with the old themes of love, lust, passion, pain, regret and depression. The voice is gorgeous as ever; heartbreaking, natural and stirring and the album gets its own unique identity. "I love to speak with Leonard/he's a sportsman and a shepherd/ he's a lazy bastard living in a suit," he sings in the first track, Going home. It's a cynical, third person, slow and melodic track with the voice of Diana Glover entering the song like a shadowy cloud. The lyrics are a clear winner. Take Anyhow, for instance: "Dreamed about you baby/you were wearing half your dress/ I know you hate me/but could you hate me less?" It's simple, recited to the sound of the piano, but evocative.
Cohen uses cynicism and self-mockery best in Darkness. It's cheeky and sly and the baritone is unabashedly sexy. It's a song you can dance to, with an ex-lover, for a tease. Lullaby is an easy song, with some really simple and pleasing guitar work and lyrics that go: "Well the mouse ate the crumb/ then the cat ate the crust/now they've fallen in love/they're talking in tongues." There is Crazy to love you, with the old Cohen feel to it, but my personal favourite is the last song, Different sides. It's less dark, with some addictive piano and percussion.
Just listening to Cohen is an experience in itself. Even if you haven't watched him perform live, you know he probably keeps the microphone close to his lips, you can smell the cigarettes on his fingers and you can hear every breath as clearly as possible. Cohen is not just another musician who is in the business of music; he is a poet, a man of words and feelings. His songs make you nostalgic; it takes you to a place in your head you thought you had already cleared. Old Ideas, released after seven years, is probably not Cohen's best, but his lyrics are on their mark again. A must-have for his fans.
"Review: Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
Rating: 80/100
Bare, raw and not everyone's cup of tea - this is probably the best description of Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas. The 77-year-old singer-songwriter lets his naturalistic voice be the focal point of this album, burning through the tracks with his poetic words of wisdom.
Reminiscent of Johnny Cash's latter records, Cohen chooses words over music, hence why I said it might not be everyone's cup of tea. This isn't the type of album that you'll be spinning at a party, or your friends will be begging to borrow (with no intention of returning it); it's a deeply personal piece of art that will hit home with many, and do nothing for others. Lyric and poetry enthusiasts will absorb every word and analyse the delivery, but if you're looking for the next bass drop or catchy hook - look elsewhere.
Delving into spoken word, gospel, folk and blues, Cohen relies on the backup singers to create the melody and harmony, while his "old ideas" are conveyed via his simplistic acoustic guitar playing and flat, deep voice - no auto-tune here, folks. Without being cheesy or overly sentimental, this is just a man with his guitar, sitting on a porch, and telling you what's in his heart and head.
Frequently eerie, sometimes sad, but altogether persuasive, Old Ideas shows a master of words at work. Cohen is a true wordsmith.
Best Tracks: 'Amen', 'Come Healing', and 'Different Sides'
ENGLISH VERSION.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas (Columbia Records - 2012)"
Faust Sceptik (France) by The Celestial Pochard, April 5, 2012
Note du chroniqueur : 10/10
En quelques mots : Sublime, divin, majestueux.
Ils sont rares mais il y a des artistes dont la vie est une succession de chef d'æuvres. Ces artistes là en viendraient presque à donner un sens à notre propre vie, ils réveillent en nous ce besoin d'être là pour assister à des miracles que seul l'art semble en mesure de nous offrir. Tels des magiciens ils connaissent la parfaite formule pour émerveiller nos sens. On touche au sacré car c'est religieusement que ces æuvres se vivent et se ressentent.
Monsieur Cohen est un prince dont je ne saurais faire assez d'éloges. Si je devais un jour me retrouver face à lui je n'hésiterai pas, par hommage et par respect, à lui faire ma plus belle révérence mais jamais je ne m'inclinerai assez pour lui signifier à quel point ses mots et sa musique pèsent sur mon cæur et sur mon âme.
L'année 2008 fut celle de son grand retour sur scène avec une tournée sensée remplir les caisses alors vidées par son ancienne manager Kelley Lynch. Les prix des places sont exorbitants mais ses prestations sont à ce point sincères et généreuses que le mal est rapidement pardonné. On aurait alors pu craindre que l'aspect financier entache l'æuvre du bonhomme mais il n'en fut rien. Aujourd'hui âgé de 77 ans, c'est sous une forme exemplaire qu'il se révéla sur scène pour un public de toute manière conquis d'avance.
Avec "Old Ideas" son nouvel album studio, le premier depuis "Dear Heather" parut en 2004 si l'on oublie sa collaboration avec Philip Glass et ses live, il pallie à une absence de 8 ans. Connaissant l'æuvre du bonhomme on ne pouvait clairement pas douter du fait que ce retour en studio donnerait naissance à un nouveau bijou. A la première écoute j'étais déjà conquis, il ne m'a fallu que quelques minutes pour être totalement envahi par tant de beauté. Envoûtante du début à la fin, sa voix a bien pris des rides, celles de la maturité. Le crooner qu'il est a toujours cette faculté de nous faire vibrer de la tête aux pieds avec quelques mots doucereusement susurrés à nos oreilles. Les compositions elles sont toujours aussi finement travaillées, un véritable travail d'orfèvre dont lui seul a le secret. Les textes eux sont une nouvelle fois nourris par sa dépression chronique, par l'amour, par la religion... Des thèmes qui lui sont chers et que seul son talent de poète sait mettre en lumière aussi sombres soient-ils. L'ensemble est d'une cohérence sans faille et n'est que pur génie du début à la fin. Que quelqu'un me dise le contraire et je ne le croirai pas. être hermétique à tant de beauté c'est comme refuser la pièce quand on est sans le sou, insensé et parfois dramatique.
Cette énième perle que nous a livrée Leonard Cohen nous laisse rêveur et on se plait à croire que lorsque le monde s'éteindra elle résonnera encore au plus profond de nos êtres. Un album qui les éclipse tous, qui donne encore un nouveau sens au divin. On a beau se dire que jamais il ne pourra faire mieux, on ne peut décemment pas mettre de limites à son talent. Laissez-vous ensorceler par Old Ideas et écoutez-le sans modération, n'en faites pas un plaisir personnel, partagez le. Il comblera pour sûr les fêlures de chacun et saura raviver quelques flammes dont la braise rougeoie encore dans l'obscurité de notre âme et sur lesquelles nous n'avons plus la force de souffler.
"LEONARD COHEN - Old Ideas (Columbia Records - 2012)"
Faust Sceptik (France) by The Celestial Pochard, April 5, 2012
Note of the chronicler: 10/10
In a few words: Sublime, divine, majestic.
They are rare but there are artists whose life is a succession of masterpieces. These artists would come here almost make sense of our own lives, they awaken in us this need to be there to witness the miracles that only art seems able to offer us. Such magicians they know the perfect formula to amaze our senses. We touch the sacred because it is religiously that these works are lived and felt.
Mr. Cohen is a prince I can not make enough praise. If I had one day find myself in front of him I will not hesitate, for honor and respect, to make him my best bow but I never bow enough to show him how his words and his music weigh on my heart and my soul.
The year 2008 was that of a comeback on stage with a tour so sensible coffers emptied by his former manager Kelley Lynch. The ticket prices are outrageous but its benefits are so generous and sincere that evil is quickly forgiven. We would then have been fears that the financial aspect taints the work of man but it did not happen. Now aged 77, is a form copy it turned out on stage to an audience anyway conquered in advance.
With "Old Ideas" his new studio album, the first since "Dear Heather" appeared in 2004 if we forget his collaboration with Philip Glass and his live, he overcomes an absence of eight years. Knowing the work of man could not be clearly no doubt that this back in the studio would create a new jewel. At first listen I was already won, it took me a few minutes to be totally overwhelmed by so much beauty. Captivating from beginning to end, his voice has taken wrinkles, those of maturity. The crooner is he still has that ability to make us vibrate from head to foot with a few words whispered sweetly in our ears. The compositions are always so finely worked, a true work of craftsmanship which he alone has the secret. The texts themselves are again fed by his chronic depression, love, religion ... by themes dear to him and only his talent as a poet can highlight as bleak as they are. The set is a seamless and consistent is pure genius from beginning to end. Somebody tell me otherwise and I will not believe it. Be sealed in such beauty is like failing the room when you're broke, foolish and sometimes dramatic.
This umpteenth pearl that has delivered us Leonard Cohen is breathtaking and we like to believe that the world will turn off when it still resonate deep within our beings. An album that eclipses all that still gives new meaning to the divine. It was nice to think that he can never do better, we can not possibly put limits to his talent. Let yourself be enchanted by Old Ideas and listen to it without moderation, do not make a personal pleasure, share. For sure it will fill the cracks of each and will rekindle some flames glowing embers which still in the darkness of our souls and on which we no longer have the strength to breathe.
"Capsule music reviews: Leonard Cohen & Odd Future (nsfw)"
Grade: A minus
There are moments on Old Ideas that merit an A+, a grade I have yet to award in this publication. But I believe in un-weighted grading, and I think Cohen would too. The greatest achievement here is despite the fact that it's clearly a death album, he totally avoids sentimentality (unlike Paul McCartney's newest piece of drivel). And unlike Bruce Springsteen, his artistry is integral to the final product and is not forgotten as he ponders his subject matters. And above all, it is deeply personal music (Cohen touchingly reflects on old age while Springsteen gazes from the back of his limousine at the Occupy Wall Street movement). The first six songs are almost perfect, and I suspect that I like "Show Me the Place" most of all (I only like Biblical lyrics coming from Prince or a Jew). And yes, Cohen is singing about sex with his usual style at age 77-"I'm naked and I'm filthy and there's sweat upon my brow, and both of us are guilty anyhow." It's a dark record, but not without humor. I am 60 years younger than Leonard Cohen, but for the 42 minutes I spend listening to Old Ideas every time, it doesn't feel like it.
"Showcase: Musical Minimalism"
The Hindu by Mukund Padmanabhan, April 14, 2012
Narcissism and self-deprecation typically coexist in Leonard Cohen's spare new album Old Ideas.
Leonard Cohen's astonishing endurance as a songwriter and musician owes to at least two things. A musical imagination that grapples with basic and timeless themes that tease the mind and mine the heart -- salvation, suffering, betrayal, guilt, regret, adoration and hope. Less importantly, a sudden renaissance in the 1990s, when his music found its way into movie soundtracks and became covers in the work of a diverse range of artists. It has continued to live and flourish since this unexpected rebirth. Eight years since his last album, Cohen is back with Old Ideas; a typically self-deprecatory title that is a possible reference to his advanced years (77) and his choice to remain in the same musical continuum. Don't expect any radical departures here in either genre or mood.
This is the Cohen we have always known, the man who persuaded us it was hip to be gloomy, his dark inner torments eased by a gentle self-mocking humour and a voice of self-absorbed, almost distracted, eroticism.
Narcissism and self-denigration typically coexist in the opening track of the meditatively paced Going Home, which sets the smouldering and mournful tone for the rest of the album. He will speak these words of wisdom/Like a sage, a man of vision/Though he knows he's really nothing/But the brief elaboration of a tube.
In Darkness, his gripping melancholy, alleviated by a spirited bass synthesiser and perky piano riffs, is more in your face. (I got no future/I know my days are few/The present's not that pleasant/Just a lot of things to do.) Anyhow, in which he pleads with a former lover to hate him less (Could you cut me one more slack?) is more a recital than a song by a man who turned to music after the lack of financial success as a poet and writer.
His voice if anything is more gravelly than ever. There is orchestration but it is not as full and lush as it has been in his more recent live performances. This is musical minimalism, the melody sacrificed for a brutal simplicity and the accompanying instruments and voices secreted softly in the background.
Old Ideas is more for dyed-in-the-wool Cohen fans like myself - that small but loyal audience which cannot but be gripped by moody anthems on the human condition, with their ruminations on sexuality and salvation and their conflicts about greed and renunciation.
Greenhorns are better advised to pick up one of his other works -- preferably one of the 'Best of...' albums -- for an introduction to a man known as the poet-laureate of despair.
"Old Ideas"
MOST people only know Leonard Cohen as the guy who wrote and first performed Hallelujah before singers John Cale and Jeff Buckley's individual cover versions of the song made it a major hit.
This Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist is considered one of the most prolific folk singers of all time.
Cohen's singing style sounds like he is reciting lyrics like poetry. Hence, it is all about listening to the words and appreciating them.
So if you are patient, you might feel something when he "sings" Going Home, Show Me the Place, Darkness and Crazy to Love You.
Forget guitar riffs or musical arrangements or vocal skills. The music plays second fiddle to Cohen sounding out the words.
Not for everyone but if you appreciate poetry set to music, then this might be the album for you.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas"
There's something about Leonard Cohen that never gets old. And there's another thing about his music that's ancient. I'm not sure which is which anymore. But he's fresh. He's ancient. Like the pyramids. No matter how many times you see them a small part of you still goes "... whaat?" Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know, nobody talks to me anymore.
But I do believe Leonard Cohen has always been somehow ancient. His lyrics have never really been the words of a young man. His books, poems and records were never the stuff of adolescent whinging. But his songs have never been exclusive to the thoughts of an old guy, the tired words of one who's seen it all. Seen it all doesn't scratch the surface. Cohen's words have always been deeper, meaner, kinder, funnier, timeless.
Leonard's new release, Old Ideas, is a little rawer than some of his other records, especially since most of his '80s releases. The instrumentation is similar to his 2009 Live in London record; at least, it captures a vaguely similar feel, with less going on. Old Ideas is one of the purest sounding records he's made since New Skin For an Old Ceremony (1974). Why? I think Leonard encompasses too much to ever really change. That's too big a load to carry from one place from another, so he stays put. Listening to Old Ideas I can't help but picture him as some ancient totem, some old rock face watching time and space unfold before him and beyond him revealing all the heartbreak, violence, confusion and beauty in between. I'm probably wrong though. He's probably just a nice old man who writes stuff.
Either way, Old Ideas is exactly what you want out of Cohen if you've got half a brain. The biggest emotions in the world contained in the simplest lines. "I know you have to hate me but could you hate me less." Just ask Lou Reed. He could have stopped writing gems like that a long time ago.
Leonard Cohen, as most great artists will, denies all the inflationary digging I made for some magical answer behind his poetry. Simply denied in his first song, the claim before the first chorus of the record... No-no, Anthony, he's saying... I'm "really nothing but the brief elaboration of a tune."
Oh and one more thing. Leonard's a bad ass.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas - Columbia/Sony Music"
* * * * * (5 stars)
Old Ideas like spirituality, desire, mortality and acceptance.
(Leonard Cohen - lead vocals, guitar; Roscoe Beck - bass (track 4); Jordan Charnofsky - guitar; Rafael Bernardo Gayol - drums (track 4); Dana Glover - vocals, vocal arrangements (tracks 1, 5, 7, 10); Robert Korda - violin (track 2); Neil Larsen - Hammond B3 organ, piano, synth bass, percussion (track 10), cornet (track 8), keyboards (track 4); Bob Metzger - guitar (track 4); Sharon Robinson - vocals, vocal arrangements (tracks 2, 4, 8, 9), synth bass (tracks 2, 9); Ed Sanders - backing vocals, vocal arrangements, guitar (track 9); Bela Santelli - violin (tracks 1, 3, 7); Dino Soldo - horns (track 4), all instruments except cornet (track 8); Chris Wabich - drums; Jennifer Warnes - vocals, vocal arrangements (track 3); The Webb Sisters - backing vocals (track 4); Javier Mas - archilaud (track 4))
Old Ideas is Leonard Cohen's 12th studio album and is the first new material he has recorded in eight years. A lot occurred during the time leading up to this year, including world tours, a resurgence and a rediscovery of Cohen's earlier work, loss of money from unscrupulous associates and a larger fan base of new and returning audience members who have made Cohen more popular than at any point in his storied career. Cohen's new ten-track, 41-minute record follows a path similar to his previous effort, 2004's Dear Heather. Like that project, Cohen shares writing duties with others (half the cuts are collaborations) and also trusted his bandmates and fellow musicians to arrange or create some of the sparsely produced material. Lyrically, Cohen continues to mine the fertile themes he has stoked since his introductory full-length, 1967's The Songs of Leonard Cohen, including religion and faith, friendship and desire, acceptance and conflict. Throughout Old Ideas, Cohen's vocals show a deeper baritone: although he's lost some range, he uses his voice to heighten and personalize his music. Old Ideas has been released as a compact disc, a digital download, 180-gram vinyl, and a collector's bundle featuring the album and a limited edition lithograph of Cohen's artwork. This review refers to the CD version.
One of the things which mark Cohen as a compelling performer is the ageless nature of his compositions. He has rarely relied on au-current production styles and since the 1980s has peppered his songs with a dark humor which fits his growing stature as a respected songwriter of intelligence, compassion and experience. That sense of an opaque witticism mixed with individualized reflection flows through the opener, "Going Home," where Cohen addresses himself in the third person, "I love to speak with Leonard; he's a sportsman and a shepherd; he's a lazy bastard living in a suit; but he does say what I tell him, even though it isn't welcome; he just doesn't have the freedom to refuse." While Cohen sing-speaks about being nothing more than a "brief elaboration," soft electric keyboards are offset by a female backing chorus, acoustic piano and Bela Santelli's atmospheric violin. That cutting wit is also applied to "Darkness," where Cohen blithely questions his fate: "I caught the darkness, drinking from your cup. I said, 'Is this contagious?' You said, 'Just drink it up.'" The arrangement harkens back to pre-1950s rhythm and blues and likeminded gospel, and is reinforced by Southern-tinged horns, The Webb Sisters' soulful backing vocals and Neil Larson's Memphis-mannered keyboards, which all rise and ebb in the mix. The slightly funky instrumental undercurrent furnishes earthy support to Cohen's spectral lyrics about a past which has slipped away, his uncertain present and an overcast future. The itch and pitch of lust courses through the closing cut, the mid-tempo and somewhat playful "Different Sides," where Cohen avers to his chosen partner, "You want to live where the suffering is, I want to get out of town," and then implores, "Come on, baby, give me a kiss, stop writing everything down."
Healing and closure, whether welcome or not, splice through several tracks. The minor-key "Amen" features an informal quirky rhythm speckled by Robert Korda's gypsy-esque violin, a lonely banjo, delicate percussion and a forlorn trumpet. For over seven minutes, Cohen posits and pleads for love, physical and spiritual, but makes it clear such ambitions are often only attained when the seeker and the pursued have "seen through the horror," figuratively and/or in reality. Those sentiments are echoed during the quietly moving "Show Me the Place," which uses religious imagery and a psalm-like arrangement. Cohen does not ask for forgiveness before his demise, but instead makes an appeal for a greater understanding of life's mystery before the darkness closes in. Penitence and the settling of the soul permeate another hymn-like composition, "Come Healing," which is not preachy but does have a theological position perfected by Cohen's repetitive poetics.
Cohen has a way of simplifying while strengthening, where recurring words and restated musical themes add impact. Few others could give an acuter connotation to straightforward text such as "There's something that I'm watching, means a lot to me, it's a broken banjo bobbing on the dark infested sea," which is the essence of the countrified "Banjo." New Orleans-styled horns provide a hint of Hurricane Katrina's disaster and aftermath, but Cohen does not directly affirm what the image of waterlogged strings really implies. He utilizes a similar strategy during the night-closing "Lullaby," honed by dry harmonica, lightly strummed guitars and unassuming backing vocals. Old Ideas is filled with consciousness and sensitivity, both hallmarks of Cohen's prose, poetry and songwriting. In his hands and with his weathered voice, Cohen proves that while his ideas may be come from someone who is older, they are not time-worn or overused, and indeed say more with less.
TrackList: Going Home; Amen; Show Me the Place; Darkness; Anyhow; Crazy to Love You; Come Healing; Banjo; Lullaby; Different Sides.
"Cohen's Ideas is a classic"
AsiaOne by Victoria Barker, May 11, 2012
4/5 stars
The opening elegiac track of Leonard Cohen's latest album, Old Ideas, quite concisely sums up the record - and the Canadian singer's take on love, healing, life and faith - as a whole.
On Going Home, he addresses himself in the third person from the view of his creator, lamenting in that cavernous baritone: "Going home, without my burden/Going home, behind the curtain/Going home, without the costume that I wore."
In his mind, he is "a lazy bastard, living in a suit", who "wants to write a love song/an anthem of forgiving/a manual for living with defeat".
At 77, the man clearly acknowledges that, well, as is inevitable in life, he has grown old. But defeated, he is not.
His familiar growl seems deeper still, heavier and more languid than before, but is just as persuasive as he presents his songs in his signature wry, barbed style.
Old Ideas, his first collection of new material since 2004's Dear Heather - and coming after he had to declare bankruptcy in 2005 due to his former manager's alleged embezzlement of funds - is a magnum opus of sorts.
His 12th album since his 1967 classic debut, Songs Of Leonard Cohen, is a 10-tracker rooted in blues and gospel, and each song showcases the man's sharp eye on life and dark sense of humour.
The acclaimed Hallelujah singer plucks gently on his guitar as he croons about the kind of lust that drives you up the wall, despite knowing it's all temporary, on Crazy To Love You.
Elsewhere, like on Come Healing and Banjo, lush female vocals ebb and flow around him, adding a lightness and colour to the proceedings.
But there is also a sense of finality to these songs that shows up, sometimes unexpectedly, such as on The Darkness, one of the more up-tempo tunes.
"I've got no future/I know my days are few/The present's not that pleasant/Just a lot of things to do/I thought the past would last me/But the darkness got there too," Cohen drawls.
Is there as poetic, as magnetic, a musician out there as the legendary Leonard Cohen? I dare say not.
ENGLISH VERSION.
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas - Sony Music"
Under Floripa (Brazil) by Luciano Vitor, May 17, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
Certa vez um critico ou alguém famoso disse que ouvir Leonard Cohen, era o mesmo que ouvir a voz de Deus.
Perto dos 80 anos, Cohen é a prova viva que nunca é tarde para recomeçar. Depois de passar um período em um mosteiro budista, descobriu que havia sido roubado pelo seu ex-empresário e estava falido.
Gravou um disco novo e voltou a estrada. Tão simples e ao mesmo tempo tão emblemático que um artista desse quilate, tenha que recomeçar tudo outra vez. "Old Ideas" é um presente dos céus! Em meio a poucas novidades, poucos artistas que realmente nos façam parar para ouvir um cd inteiro, o novo trabalho do canadense é simplesmente perfeito, como a voz rouca e cadenciada de Cohen.
A abertura com "Going Home", é quase uma oração, lúdica e singela. "Amen" se torna uma balada pop com sonoridade antiga, como a beleza de se ouvir uma canção em um velho rádio valvulado.
Embora Leonard Cohen possa ser associado a classe, elegância e discrição, seria muito bom que ele imperasse de vez nos dials mais populares e pudesse ser ouvido pelas grandes massas, pois o maior pecado é o bardo ficar restrito a nichos, e não ao populacho.
Cohen, faz da vida de cada um, algo mais suportavel, ao derramar suas palavras em cada incauto ouvido.
E nos basta isso; agradecer à Deus pela existência de alguém assim...
"Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas - Sony Music"
Under Floripa (Brazil) by Luciano Vitor, May 17, 2012
* * * * * (5 stars)
Once a critic or someone famous said that listening to Leonard Cohen, was the same as the voice of God.
Close to 80 years, Cohen is living proof that it is never too late to start. After spending a period in a Buddhist monastery, he found that had been stolen by his former manager and was bankrupt.
He recorded a new album and returned to the road. So simple and yet so emblematic that an artist of this caliber, you have to start all over again. "Old Ideas" is a gift from heaven! Amid little new, few artists that really make us stop to hear a whole cd, the new Canadian work is just perfect, like a hoarse voice and lilting Cohen.
Opening with "Going Home," is almost a prayer, playful and simple. "Amen" becomes a pop ballad sounding old, like the beauty of listening to a song on an old tube radio.
Although Leonard Cohen may be associated with class, elegance and discretion, it would be nice once in imperasse dials more popular and could be heard by the masses, because the greatest sin is the bard be restricted to niche, not the populace. Cohen, makes the life of each one, something more bearable, by shedding his words in every careless ear.
And in just that; thank God for the existence of someone like this ...
"A Lazy Bastard Living in a Suit: Leonard Cohen's 'Old Ideas' is Superb!"
Patheos by doshoport, July 1, 2012
This is the best Cohen since Ten New Songs.
Now I enjoy Dear Heather too. "There for You," for example, is a powerful dharma tune with a biting double meaning as an old Zen dog, long-time practitioner with Sasaki-roshi, shows his zazen heart.
But on my Omaha road trip last weekend, I listened to his new offerings on Old Ideas. Repeatedly. The old boy delivers on every track with irony, longing, biting self-reflection and humor:
I know it really is a pity
The way you treat me now
I know you can't forgive me
But forgive me anyhow ("Anyhow")
And ...
I got no future,
I know my days are few.
The presents not that pleasant,
Just a lot of things to do ("The Darkness")
"I'm just a brief elaboration of a tube," sings Leonard in "Going Home." And also from "Going Home:"
I love to speak with Leonard
He's a sportsman and a shepherd
He's a lazy bastard
Living in a suit
My current favorite, though, is "Different Sides." Now if you think this is only a relationship song, well, "...we find ourselves on different sides of a line nobody drew."
Seems more like Genesis to me:
32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
The whole thing is permeated with what Cohen calls "a blessed fatigue." Sounds like a mature human being to me.
We find ourselves on different sides
Of a line nobody drew
Though it all may be one in the higher eye
Down here where we live it is two
I to my side call the meek and the mild
You to your side call the Words
By virtue of suffering I claim to have won
You claim to have never been heard
Both of us say there are laws to obey
Yeah, but frankly I don't like your tone
You want to change the way I make love
(But) I want to leave it alone
The pull of the moon, the thrust of the sun
Thus the ocean is crossed
The waters are blessed while a shadowy guest
Kindles a light for the lost
Both of us say there are laws to obey
But frankly I don't like your tone
You want to change the way I make love
But) I want to leave it alone
Down in the valley the famine goes on
The famine up on the hill
I say that you shouldn't, you couldn't, you can't
You say that you must and you will
You want to live where the suffering is
I want to get out of town
Come on, baby, give me a kiss
Stop writing everything down....
"Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas"
Sometimes I lay in bed at night, restless and fatigued. I close my eyes and think of a lullaby to unshackle my worried mind and settle my subconscious. For some reason, my internal narration always takes on the voice of Leonard Cohen. I can imagine him sitting next to my bed, slightly slumped close to my pillow on a rickety chair, breathing hot words of consolation. Each sentence curling off his tongue with articulated precision hiding in the soft curls lining my pillow. Leonard Cohen's "Old Ideas" rekindled my affection for his wisdom and sultry sound.
Typically, Leonard Cohen is synonymous with "depressing" songs. Although I can see how that perception is valid, based on his spoken word style and slow delivery, I would counter that his music is more reflective than depressing. He touches on various topics, including depression, however I feel his retrospectives are reassuring and relatively uplifting. Cohen always finds a balance between two conflicting emotions and marries them into one cohesive recollection of his experiences.
The first track "Going Home" seamlessly stitches the themes of new beginnings and enlightenment of accepting the intrusion of death with a peaceful demeanor. The violin accompaniments sound strikingly similar to traditional graduation melodies suggesting both youth and progression. The third person perspective seems like an out of body or near-death experience where every memory and conversation that you've ever been apart of floods your mind. Fleeting encounters are elucidated with wisdom and reflection. Everything makes sense and each burden is eradicated. Cohen imagines death as a form of happiness where you no longer have to wear your personas and costumes. He is at peace with the freedom death provides from shallow vanities and pain. Even Cohen's venture into the taboo topic of accepting death somehow advocates individual harmony and happiness.
One of the best examples of Cohen's feelings of ambivalence is captured in "Crazy to Love You." It is a cross between sorrow and humour. The contrast is between losing love and reflecting upon this experience from an older and refined perspective and yet still holding onto an adolescent infatuation with the girl with an undone blouse and braids. There is also a humour in the notion of holding onto a miss-matched relationship and "souvenir heartaches" because those hardships in youth will make for good stories in senility.
The synthesized organ in "Different Sides" is the essential background interlude from an 80's melodrama. Throughout the song, there is discord within a romantic relationship mainly based on a disjunction between the personality of a free spirited beatnik and an uptight conventionalist. Although it is suggested these differences break the relationship apart, the song's structure highlights how differences can also be complementary. Cohen's raspy words are softened by the background singer's supple and iridescent echoes. The song's explicit story of conflicting notions of love becomes optimistic when you notice the subtle suggestions that difference joins people.
I already have a waiting list of people who want to borrow this album. If you don't want to wait in line I suggest you drop by your local record store. It's worth every penny.
by Ian Gittins, Virgin Media, January 2012.
5 stars
Now well into his 78th year, Leonard Cohen has produced an album that is a master class in black comedy.
His longstanding battles with depression and his overflowing reservoirs of angst have meant that Cohen has invariably been viewed as a melancholic artist, but a dark humour has always lurked at his core. It teems throughout Old Ideas, an album that wears his perennial obsessions - life, love, sex, death, regret - like a comfortable old overcoat.
Cohen sets the tone on the opening Going Home, addressing his failings in the third person: "He's a lazy bastard, living in a suit." His mood of philosophical resignation bears witness to the six years he once spent on a Buddhist retreat: "He will speak these words of wisdom/Like a sage, a man of vision/Though he knows he's really nothing."
Musically, Old Ideas is a late-night album, suffused with wry reflections and dark tones. Cohen's laconic drawl has deepened to the point where it is a subterranean rumble. It's particularly effective on Anyhow, where he roguishly pleads for undeserved forgiveness from a lover to whom he has done serial wrongs: "I know you have to hate me, but could you hate me less?"
Even in his 30s, Cohen's albums were shot through with intimations of mortality, so it's impossible to convey just how poignant he sounds at 77. At the end of his days, the consummate wordsmith has produced a masterpiece.
by Kristoffrable, Team Hellions, January 31, 2012.
Leonard Cohen's success in music has come from songs that embody often human quandaries, such as sex, love, religion, and death. With Cohen's latest release Old Ideas, he revisits these themes, but what makes them intriguing is that they're so believable, especially from his perspective. Cohen has never claimed to fortune, especially with his bankruptcy in 2005. And while these may be "Old Ideas," Cohen manages to make them fresh and new with his first release in eight years.
Cohen's voice is liken to that of Tom Waits, but presents itself in full troubadour style. the opening track, "Going Home" is a beautiful poem set to music, and concerns Cohen's spiritual views, particularly about how God views him. It also conveys itself as a song from a man who doesn't have a lot of time. The album then diametrically transitions into the second track, "Amen," in which the poet wants to know whether God understands him. "Anyhow" is easily the most lustful track on the album, making damn sure that you wouldn't mind Cohen as your wing man at a bar.
The instrumentation and composition of these songs, like many in Cohen's catalog, are simple in nature, but hit straight to the heart. It could be this fact alone that makes Leonard Cohen so appealing to the masses. Whatever it is, we're happy to have him back, and hopefully we won't have to wait long for another album.
Album Rating: Buy It on CD or Vinyl
Listening Co-efficient: Passive Listen
ENGLISH VERSION
by Jean-Marie Porté, Terre de Compassion, March 22, 2012.
Le 31 janvier dernier sortait un nouvel opus du chanteur, poète et compositeur canadien Leonard Cohen. Lancé en 1967 par le single Suzanne, rendu mondialement célèbre par son mélancoliqueHallelujah, plus connu encore - et plus noir - dans la version de 1994 de Jeff Buckley, le vieil homme de près de quatre-vingts ans sort de huit ans de silence avec Old Ideas. Par des textes très poétiques, un accompagnement épuré et sa voix rauque inimitable, il évoque l'approche de la mort, faisant ses comptes avec une vie tourmentée et un Autre omniprésent. La paix qui s'en dégage nous offre un moment musical d'une rare beauté.
Ce moment, nous le devons à la chance, car rien ne semblait devoir pousser le moine bouddhisteJikan (le silencieux), alias Leonard Cohen, à remonter sur les planches. Mais l'indélicatesse d'un manager le met sur la paille, le poussant à se lancer dans une tournée titanesque de deux ans et deux cent cinquante dates, puis à enregistrer ce dernier album. Tout y est assumé, les tribulations d'une vie d'artiste avec tant d'amours maladroites, la joie, la souffrance, la défaite, la musique, le sens religieux le plus aigu, tout, dans le sens d'une offrande bouleversante.
Les combats sont ceux que l'on peut comprendre à demi-mot dans les chansons Darkness,Anyhow, Crazy to love you ou Lullaby, lourdes des souffrances du cæur[1] et de ce désir qui rend fou[2], et pourtant teintées de la tendresse apaisée de celui qui prend congé, vaincu par unefatigue bénie[3].
Translated by Google Translate
by Jean-Marie Porté, Terre de Compassion, March 22, 2012.
On January 31 came out a new album of the singer, poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen Canadian. Launched in 1967 by the Single Suzanne, made world famous by his melancholy Hallelujah, still best known - and black - in the 1994 version of Jeff Buckley, the old man of nearly eighty years out of eight years of silence with Old Ideas. By very poetic texts, uncluttered accompaniment and his voice hoarse inimitable, it evokes the approach of death, making the score with a tormented life and omnipresent Other. Peace that emerges offers a musical moment of rare beauty.
This time, we owe it to chance, because nothing seemed to push the Buddhist monk Jikan (silencer), aka Leonard Cohen, to get back on stage. But the indelicacy of a manager puts him on the straw, prompting him to embark on a mammoth tour of two years and two hundred fifty dates and to record this album. Everything is assumed, the tribulations of life as an artist with such clumsy love, joy, suffering, defeat, music, the most acute sense of religion, while, in the sense of offering an overwhelming.
The fights are those that can understand the hint in the songs Darkness, Anyhow, Crazy to love you or Lullaby, the heavy suffering of the heart [1] and this desire that drives you mad [2], yet tinged the tenderness subsided one who takes leave of, defeated by a blessed fatigue [3].
Cult of the New, December 18, 2012.
Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen's output has been uneven: He predominantly writes poems and relies on others to make them work as songs. (He's also the artist I'm least familiar with in this article. His only other album that I know well is Songs, and even his fans tell me not to bother with many of the others.) Fortunately, Old Ideas is one of the good ones. The music perfectly fits the plainspoken art of the lyrics, with understated backup singers and a gentle, introspective rhythm. It would be easy to give Cohen's music a pretentious choral flair to recognize his status, or the stripped-down plucking of a starving artist busking on a corner. By splitting the difference between the two, Old Ideas' music emphasizes the ways both apply to him while avoiding the pitfalls of either extreme.
Cohen always had an old soul, but as an old man still has some youthful restlessness. The "old ideas" of the album title are sex, love, pain, and death, and the songs feel like they could have come from any point in his lifetime. Cohen's lyrics are direct and grounded in reality, creating evocative images with straightforward language. For example, a troubled relationship puts its members "on different sides of a line nobody drew". Even when he moves away from literal reality, it's not very far: The "broken banjo bobbing on the dark infested sea" is one of a couple tracks which treat "darkness" as a literal force that can invade us. The only literary conceit is in the standout opening track, when the muse speaks directly to us to explain how it forces Cohen to deliver these poems.
I listened to this album repeatedly, sure that I was missing out on the true depth of the songs. Eventually, I realized that their surface appearance was the extent of it. Old Ideas features no more and no less than songs distilled down to their beautiful essence. It's not everything that some people claim this master can deliver, but it's very good.
Grade: B
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