The Essential Leonard Cohen (Rm) (2CD)

Cohen may well be the most poetic songwriter of his generation. Well before he ever released "Songs of Leonard Cohen", he was a published poet and a literary icon in Canada. His more recent appeal among younger Bohemians for his existential honesty, differs from first generation hippies who celebrated Cohen as the embodiment of Eros and free love. His minmalist musical approach is a stark counterpoint to his poetic text which is lush with imagery, double meanings and ambivalent wordplay. "Sisters of Mercy" can be read as either a celebration of the good works of, either nuns or prostitutes depending on your viewpoint. "Hallelujah" makes a holy sacrament of uninhibited sexuality. Cohen always challenged the notion of duality in his themes by equating the sacred with the profane. His life's mission his been afflict discomfort on those who see the world in mutally exlusive terms of moral postivism.

Cohen was the reckless romantic who spent several years in a Bhuddist monastary and now he has returned as an aging Siddartha to challenge our conventional wisdom about life, love and morality. "The Essential Leonard Cohen" is the journey of a seeker of the truth beginning with a potrait of an artist as a young man, and ending with jaded musings of a sage and sinner who discovers the more he learns about life, the less he really knows. This is Cohen the zen-master who has nothing left to prove. We are wiser people for Cohen's long jouney into the heart of darkness and if you want the unadulterated truth about love and life, Leonard Cohen will be the first to step forward and fearlessly proclaim, "I'm your man."


A Suitable Primer   March 29, 2004
Kurt Harding (Boerne TX)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

The name Leonard Cohen first came to my attention way back in the day when Suzanne was released. It was a fairly popular and much-covered song, but it never occurred to me to actually buy the album. I was into much musically heavier things at the time and so my awareness of Cohen gradually receded into distant memory.
Nowadays, my musical interests are much wider and my pockets deeper, so I took a chance on Cohen's CD Ten New Songs when it was released several years ago. It took a while to get into, but I liked some of the songs immediately. My rule with music is that if I like a CD I've purchased by an unfamiliar artist, I buy something else by that artist also in order to give myself a broader enjoyment and understanding of their work. And so it went with Cohen. I picked up several more CDs and liked them enough to feel confident that I would be pleased with The Essential Leonard Cohen.
I have read all the reviews posted here, both positive and negative, and observe that its a given with any compilation that one will always feel that some songs were included that shouldn't have been and some obvious winners omitted. My candidate for ejection is Alexandra Leaving. I would have much preferred to see Boogie Street included or possibly Joan of Arc in its stead.
I think the CD is nicely divided into two periods because as several reviewers have noted, Cohen seems to have two voices. A lot of songs on the first CD one might classify as neo-folk, for lack of a better term. On this, I like Suzanne, The Partisan, Hallelujah, and I'm Your Man best.
On the second CD, the music is more in the direction of soul tinged rock with the occasional nod to country. And Cohen's deepening voice on the second CD imbues the music with more mystery and even occasional menace. I prefer the second disc with its apocalyptic renderings of First We Take Manhattan and The Future. Cohen's blood-chilling delivery on the latter combined with its scathing lyrics should give everyone a lot to think about. Closing Time wouldn't be out of place in any country dancehall and could probably be an alt-country radio hit. A Thousand Kisses Deep is evocative of the work of Michael Franks during his Objects of Desire period. But next to The Future, you might find the live recording of the dreamy and romantic Dance Me To The End of Love to be the surprise best cut. It is really tremendous. Juxtaposed with the former, it shows Cohen to be a man of huge talent who can literately express the gamut of human emotion through song.
This CD is not really for those who have all of Leonard Cohen's recordings already, but it is a suitable primer for anyone who wants an overview of this underrated musician's work.


Thank God for Leonard Cohen   January 4, 2004
Julia Rader (Everett, WA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is a must for any Leonard Cohen complete-ist's collection! I have every CD he's ever put out and yet I find myself frequently choosing this set in order to conveniently listen to favorites from a variety of Leonard's previous CDs. A fabulous collection from an amazing artist!