Leonard Cohen
Popular Problems
19 September 2014
4 stars out of 5
Popular Problems
is Leonard Cohen’s thirteenth studio LP, and it isn’t all that bad. “There’s
torture, and there’s killing, and there’s all my bad reviews,” Cohen sings on “Almost
Like the Blues,” but the man who just turned 80 this past weekend isn’t getting
many bad reviews these days. Despite being born and raised in decidedly
un-artsy Westmount (an enclave of anglophone colonialism on the island of
Montreal), Cohen became one of the original Plateau-Mont-Royal hipsters in the ‘50s
and ‘60s, writing some of what became a part of Canada’s canonical literature;
however, like most Canadians in those days, he didn’t become successful in his
musical career until he moved south of the border. Cohen probably would have
been happily retired a decade or two ago, spending lazy days writing at his
favourite café on his favourite Greek island where the only transportation is
by goat cart, would it have not been for his manager stealing millions of
dollars from his retirement fund.
So, he’s had to return to the studio and the stage to earn
back what was stolen. And, frankly, Popular
Problems isn’t all that bad. Certainly this is an exercise in
traditionalism, though a tradition that Cohen himself invented, and this record
benefits from probably the most effective melding of musical arrangements to
Cohen’s lyrics in over four decades. Cohen’s voice has aged like a very good
wine—or perhaps like a really intense, smoky scotch. He lets it crack and grind
in the lowest registers, effortlessly turning in a performance as intense and
deadly as those of Blixa Bargeld in the early days of Einstürzende Neubauten,
though Cohen definitely isn’t afraid to be sexy and cool while he’s doing it.
Indeed, Cohen seems doomed to be sexy and cool; it’s inescapable. And the
record… well, it isn’t that bad at all.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
No comments:
Post a Comment