Well, firstly I'd just like to clear up an issue that people seem to get confused about. Leonard Cohen, like the Smiths, is not depressing. There is in fact humour in both and lyrics that touch on what it is to be human in ways that few other artists, if any, can match. Neither do either of them take themselves too seriously. So, that's cleared up isn't it? Once and for all?
I can't claim to be a big Leonard Cohen fan, certainly never went to the kind of parties where he might be the background to a successful conclusion to the evening. His music did form a backdrop to part of my rather tortured adolescence though and it took me a long time to begin to appreciate him through independent, free thinking adult ears.
It took You Want it Darker and then a purchase of a box set of his first ten albums to really set me on the road to what might be approaching "fandom" but I'm still not fully fledged.
When I first got those ten albums (CDs) I remember listening to them back to back in the regular car journeys made at that time. Song of I was already familiar with (and don't the songs from that album form the perfect accompaniment to the western McCabe and Mrs Miller) but other favourites emerged. And some were less immediately "hits".
Death of a Ladies Man was one of those that I haven't returned to as regularly but this week my arm has been twisted. On first listen I found it hard to listen to. I then listened to it sandwiched between the two either side in alphabetical order. The contrast is stark.
There is something about the brashness of the sound, and as others have intimated the tone of the lyrics (although I think they are more tongue in cheek than openly mysogynisitc, even so they don't represent his finest hour) that I find jarring. On repeated listens then some of the songs I can begin to appreciate; others though leave me cold.
There are others who know Cohen's history better than I do but I think he has not been shy of collaborations in the past. One of my favourite albums of his is Ten New Songs, co-written and co-produced by Sharon Robinson and the total opposite of Death of...
I'm surprised this album has as many adherents as it does. It feels a bit of a mess. Not a total mess but it's doubtful, even if in a Cohen binge, that I'm going to listen to it much. A 5 for me
