This album is the very essence of Leonard Cohen. If you don't like this album, it is hard to believe you will like much else he does. If you have any interest at all in his music, give this a listen. I very, very rarely buy a whole album these days, but I ended up buying this whole album.
I remember a couple of Cohen songs fromn this set from the album Isle of Wright, which had highlights from the five day show in 1970. The Isle of Wight Festival was better attended than Woodstock, the previous year and spotlighted an eclectic mix of 60's favorites, and those who would make a splash in the 70's. As a Cohen fan, I'm glad to hear most of ther set here!
At first I thought this might be the recent "Live in London", but no. It's probably great anyway if the recording quality is good.
Remember that band you loved that broke up? Well, next year, they're playing Coachella. We live in an age when band reunions are bordering on passé, which can obscure the fact that a well-executed comeback is often difficult to come by. Take Limp Bizkit. That once incredibly popular band released an album this year that you probably had had no idea existed. Or on a somewhat more credible note, Duran Duran reunited and recruited famed… more »
"Singer/songwriter" has gradually come to be applied to nearly everyone who both writes and performs songs, especially if they happen to play guitar and are billed under their own names rather than as members of a band. But it used to have a particular meaning, in some cases, that was a little more specific: a singer who performed self-written songs that were meant for other people to sing, too. That's a tradition that's not nearly… more »
Hey, have you guys heard anything about this Lana Del Rey person? I feel like no one's talking about her. What I wouldn't give to find out any information on her. Seems real mysterious. Well, whoever she is, we have her record and a whole lot of others today. Let's go! Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas: Seriously, I think we all just need to take a pause and revel in the fact that there is a new… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
[eMusic Selects is a program designed by eMusic to give exposure to unsigned or undersigned bands. This month's selections are Strand of Oaks and Family Band] The arresting, winter-bitten folk songs of Family Band feel like dispatches from some older, crueler place and time: a typhoid-wracked 18th-century town, perhaps, or a medieval village gripped by witch trials. In reality, it is the project of two latter-day Brooklyn expats — Kim Krans, a visual artist, and her… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
The mantle of poet is too often bestowed on any musician with a flair for the polysyllabic, but in Leonard Cohen's case, it's merely a statement of fact. Before he made his debut on record in 1967, Cohen published several volumes of poetry and a brace of novels, which helps explain the density and rich detail of even his earliest songs. Although he's widened his range in recent years, Cohen's voice has always been a… more »
