Customer Reviews

Death of a Ladies Man

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Just like many fans of Cohen's early work, at first listen I was absolutely appaled by this album. The soaring violins and overwrought orchestration struck me as disgusting, and I found myself unable to listen to the album all the way through, even though some of the lyrics that I did hear seemed interesting. Still, even lyrically it seemed a step down from the poetry of his first four studio albums, as though Cohen hadn't given the same meticulous attention to these songs as to many of his previous works (and indeed, I found out sometime later that he and Spector co-wrote these lyrics in less than two weeks, which is an anomoly for Cohen, who typically spends at least a couple years fine-tuning his songs). So I discarded the album, and moved on to explore his later catologue (which, by the way, I am not a fan of. Everything after Various Positions, particularly Ten New Songs, I find incredibly embarassing. I cringed the first time I heard Sharon Robinson crooning over a cheap smooth jazz backing , "whoa whoa, in my secret life!"). A few months later, I decided to give Death of a Ladies' Man another go. About halfway through "Paper-Thin Hotel", I suddenly saw what this album is about. Yes, the orchestration is grotesque, but that's precisely the POINT. It is vulgar, hard to swallow, but somehow grotesquely beautiful. Listen to "Paper Thin Hotel", "I Left a Woman Waiting", "Iodine", or the title track--and listen closely--and you'll see what I mean. This is "sound art" in the truest sense, not at all concerned with being pleasing or agreeable. Cohen's earlier albums were brooding and introspective, but Death of a Ladies Man is downright deranged, a manic-depressive album (comparable in some ways maybe to Lou Reed's Street Hassle, though DOaLM is a better album). Consider the first line sung on the album (from "True Love Leaves no Traces": "As the mist leaves no scar on the dark green hill, so my body leaves no scar on yours, and never will..." If you made the mistake, on your first listen, of thinking this a simple love song, listen to it again (I'm not going to get into a discussion of themes in this music, but needless to say, as with all of Cohen's music, there's a lot going on here beneath the surface). The next song, "Iodine", says "You let me love you until I was a failure", and "Your saintly kisses reeked of iodine". Then probably the greatest song on the album is "Paper-Thin Hotel", in which the narrator hears his woman making love to another man and feels (get this) blissful about it, obviously having some sort of manic depressive breakdown ("I heard your kisses at the door; I never saw the world so clear before," "I felt so good I couldn't feel a thing"). Then consider the perversity of "Memories" and "Don't go Home with your Hard-On", or the mournful depravity of the title track ("She said 'I'll make a place between my legs; I'll show you solitude..."), and it becomes clear that a more "ordinary" or traditionally "pretty" arrangement just wouldn't have worked. It had to be ugly, it had to be off-putting. It's just that sort of album. This is not music to sing along with, or to play in the background at a dinner party; it is a glimpse into a tortured, sexually depraved psyche (moreso than Cohen's other albums, likely because of the influence of Spector, who truly is a depraved lunatic), and you'll come out of the experience perhaps a little shaken, but certainly glad you listened.

The problem with this idiosyncratic album is that only fans of both Leonard Cohen and Phil Spector, two individuals with very different approaches to recording music, will appreciate it. Cohen's confessional, singer-songwriter lyrics call for simple, understated arrangements, not Spector's grandiose wall of sound, so die-hard Cohen fans will probably think this album is egregiously overproduced. On the other hand, the lavish string and horn arrangements will leave Spector enthusiasts expecting the commanding vocals of a gifted pop singer, not Cohen's brooding, world-weary groan. Both Cohen and Spector were past their primes and clearly coping with midlife crises at the time this record was made. Their music is saturated with lust, dissipation, and nostalgia, all from a very male perspective. Many will find it tawdry and overwrought, but for the right listener it can touch the rawest nerve.

Everyone puts this album down....but it rewards you with so many treasures if you just dig deep.....its a lexicon of hidden genius. just bear with it and youll see.

Leonard Cohen's "Death of a Ladies' Man", from late 1977, is clearly the most controversial album among his fans out of all his '60s & '70s albums, and it's obvious as to why. This isn't just because it's a heck of a lot different from all of his other albums, it's the WAY in which it's so different that makes it hard to swallow for many fans. I'm suspecting that there aren't a whole lot of people who are big fans of both Cohen AND Phil Spector's legendary Wall Of Sound productions, and indeed, this album sure is a long way from the starkness of albums such as "Songs From A Room" and "Songs of Love and Hate". However, it's not just the presence of Phil Spector as producer & co-writer, not to mention wailing sax solos from Steve Douglas, that results in this album being such a change of pace. It's also in Cohen's lyrics--track after track gives you the impression that Cohen was feeling REALLY sex-crazed and lustful around this time, & the lyrics on songs such as "Paper Thin Hotel" & "Memories" are atypically straightforward for him. All that said, the combination of music & lyrics on this album is, for the most part, uncanny--even though Cohen himself has continually dismissed this album over the years, it really feels as though Cohen & Spector, who co-wrote every track here themselves, had a genuine writing collaboration going on. It's not as though Spector merely took songs like "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" or "Famous Blue Raincoat" and inappropriately plastered them with Wall Of Sound productions. For example, the cathartic ballad "Paper Thin Hotel" has a lush, soaring musical backing that meshes marvelously with Cohen's confessional lyrics. Likewise, the boisterous, doo-wop style "Memories" is an ideal match for the teenage lust lyrics--it's a fun track, and it features Cohen going into one of his screaming fits on the fade (imagine him trying to sing/ scream like that nowadays). There's also the swinging, toe-tappingly catchy "Iodine"; the nicely dreamy "I Left A Woman Waiting"; & the rousing, uptempo "Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On". The album closer, the musically hazy title track, is an effective, moody piece, although it is excessively, annoyingly dragged out with not one, but TWO false endings--musically speaking, this track very strongly recalls George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity (Version 1)" which, not so coincidentally, was co-produced by Spector. There are some unfortunate problems here--the thin, sloppily performed female background vocals annoyingly drown out Cohen on "Iodine" and also get in the way on "True Love Leaves No Traces", the latter of which is a decent, breezy track, though it's a bit dull; and the countrified "Fingerprints" is also a little annoying. Overall though, "Death of a Ladies' Man" is a pretty damn good album. It's become increasingly clear over the years that Spector has long been a dangerous lunatic, but the incredible musical talents he possessed are undeniable. Whether you're a serious Cohen fan, or a big fan of Spector's productions, "Death of a Ladies' Man" is a must-have; if by some chance you're a fan of both, then you REALLY can't go wrong.

I don't even know what to say, except that I owned "Death of a Ladies' Man" for about 12 hours before I actually got to listen to it; and during that time, naturally, I looked at the liner notes.

The lyrics are absolutely beautiful, from "True Love Leaves No Traces" to the title track. I don't remember the last time I was so excited about hearing words sung.

Then I played the album. Of course, Phil "I Should Be Tried For Crimes Against Humanity" Spector ruined the whole thing. "Overdone" does not begin to describe it. Honestly, I think Phil Spector is Satan. There is no other feasible reason for his using all the horns, snare drums and backing vocals at his disposal to squeeze every last ounce of feeling out of what were perfectly perfect songs.

Now I am learning to play guitar for the sole purpose of eventually rerecording this album, the way it should be. This is a massive undertaking, because I am entirely lacking in musical talent, but this album is worth it. That's how good it could have been. Get thee behind me, Phil Spector. Get thee behind me.

This is one of the wierdest albums ever, and worth owning even if you can't decide whether to love it or hate it.For me it is certainly one of the oddest pairings in the history of popular music with cohen's darkly intellectual and sensual understatement meeting spector's affinity for huge and often vulgar production with unpredictable results - you just couldn't make it up- God knows what they were thinking. The album is patchy, but well worth the highlights. 'Don't go home with your hard-on' is probably the only cohen track you'd be ever be able to get people to dance to, while the tite track finishes life as a kind of stoned wigout with cohhen's vocals swamped under some of the mudiest production you'll hear this side of the 1950s, but somehow it all works in some strange way. Any decade other than the 1970s and it probably wouldn't have happenend- buy it just for the sheer unlikeliness of the whole thing.

This album is not as bad as it's made out to be. It is still very listenable, though certainly it is Cohen's worst album (but that's quite good by normal standards.) Phil Spector produces and gets a co-writing credit on every song, and indeed, the music and arrangements on the entire album are obviously heavily influenced by him. Spector locked Cohen out of the mixing room when he was making the album, and it is even rumored that Leonard considered trying to take the tapes from him at gunpoint! It can be quite a shock to the Cohen fan used to his normally sparse, intimate arrangements to hear these overblown musicalities that, unfortunately, tend to swallow Cohen's vocals out. He sings here in a way different from anything that he's done before or since (undoubtedly a suggestion from Spector) and they are buried too far in the mix, in my opinion. Any Cohen fan will tell you that the most important part of any Cohen album is the lyrics, and they are harder to appreciate here than usual. However, they are still very good, and more, uhhh... direct than usual. Actually, the music on this album is not bad, it's just not what you'd expect from Leonard. If you are way into Cohen's music I would get this album, but if you are new to him, you will be better served with getting most of his other material before tackling this one.

I now own every Leonard Cohen album. I love them all, though some more than others, of course. It is a great shock to me that this album has gotten so many bad reviews. It is ALWAYS in my top 3 favourite albums by Leonard (usually swapping places with 'Various Positions' and 'Recent Songs'). The title track itself is without doubt my 2nd favourite LC track, after 'Ballad of the Absent Mare'. It seems like people want Leonard to stick to only 2 styles (the folk style previous to this album, and the later style after this album). Well, this album is the pivot and I love it for that.

Despite what anyone says, this is NOT THAT different froma typical Leonard album, and Leonard's beautiful, poetic and (I always thought) strangely cryptic - like a huge puzzle to be penetrated, that takes a lifetime to solve - lyrics are all present and correct. Yes it has much more sound in it than "normal", but "normal" is not a word that should ever be used in connection with Leonard's music, imo. The at first bizarre combination of Leonard's voice, his poetry, and Spector's starling soundscape sounds just great to me. Almost psychedlic, trippy, haunting. Wonderful.

I don't even know why I am being defensive in this mini-review, the album is excellent. And contrary to what others have said, this *IS* the Leonard Cohen album I would recommend to those unfamilar with his music. And if that is sacrilege, sue me. I love it nonetheless.

I love Leonard Cohen's stark poetry. I love Phil Spector's overheated orchestral fantasias. Many negative reviews of this album lay blame for its "failure" at Spector's feet. True, the combination of Leonard's words and Spector's music may be unusual and even disconcerting, but for me the end result is a ragged, absurd glory. A fantastic, underrated piece of work. Don't listen to it with any preconceptions and you may appreciate it.

Death Of A Ladies' Man is an album of striking songs & tortured intensity so it will sound abrasive to some, especially those who prefer his spare style of the 1960s & later works like Recent Songs. As for the complaints about Phil Spector's production, the sound is not that far removed from tracks like Is This What You Wanted? and Lover Lover Lover on the 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony that are characterized by raw vocals & heavy rock instrumentation.

Even earlier, on 1971's Songs of Love and Hate the track Diamonds in the Mine was anything but gentle. Why, even his 1967 debut Songs of Leonard Cohen contains the anguished song One Us Cannot Be Wrong which addresses the lover in a sequence of strange images before moving on to melodic whistling and ending with bitter shouted la la lahs.

So there definitely was a precedent for Leonard the Rocker. His own dislike of the album - he completely ignored it in compiling The Essential Leonard Cohen - probably has more to do with unpleasant recollections of the recording process, which reportedly was quite stressful, than with the actual music. There is simply nothing wrong with the melodies or the lyrics whilst the arrangements and the vocals are a matter of taste.

On tracks like the plodding drum-dominated Iodine, the highly strung Memories with its soaring vocal sections and raucous saxes & the thunderously pounding Don't Go Home his voice strains a bit against Spector's production, appropriately reflecting the sentiment of the songs. On the other hand the tuneful twirling True Love Leaves No Traces has exquisite imagery and soulful female vocals by Renee Blackley who contributes same on Iodine and Memories.

The lyrics are sheer poetry, whether uplifting as in "True loves leaves no traces/If you and I are one/It's lost in our embraces/Like stars against the sun" or bitter and acerbic as in the twisted Paper-Thin Hotel: "It's written on the walls of this hotel/You go to heaven once you've been to hell/A heavy burden lifted from my soul/I heard that love was out of my control." The harshest element in Iodine is the lyrics, not the drums or the overall sound which is rendered highly atmospheric by the other-worldly backing vocals.

In addition to True Love Leaves No Traces, other immediately appealing songs include the sensual and elegantly arranged I Left A Woman Waiting where Leonard's voice hovers between speaking and singing. The fiddle feast Fingerprints, buoyant with a lilting, propulsive beat must be one of the most catchy country songs of all time. The track The Captain on the 1984 album Various Positions was the closest Cohen came to country again.

Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsberg are amongst the backing vocalists on Don't Go Home With Your Hardhat, a stampede of driving rhythms, shuddering percussion, powerful piano rolls and shouted vocals. The wrath & the fury are quite deceptive as the absurd lyrics will reveal if you can hear them. By adding bombast, Meat Loaf could turn this into a hit bigger than Bat out of Hell. It was a brilliant idea to put the aforementioned Fingerprints in this strategic position between the onslaught of Don't Go Home and the solemn, sprawling dirge that follows.

Gravitas at its gravest, the weighty title track Death of a Ladies' Man has a majestic arrangement with waves of multi-layered doom-laden vocals in crescendos allowing at the ebbs a single female voice to momentarily caress Cohen's. The wall of instrumental sound acts likewise, so when waning a single instrument or hypnotic instrumental pattern comes fleetingly to the fore. With its overall drone-like ambience it is as oppressive in its atmospherics as Lou Reed's The Bells on the Street Hassle album. It also brings to mind the work of Swans like 1995's The Great Annihilator.

The sleeve notes credit "Spector & Cohen" as composers of all songs with no further information on lyrics or music. Spector was responsible for all vocal arrangements and for rhythm arrangements on six tracks. The two exceptions are I Left A Woman Waiting & Iodine where Nino Tempo takes the credit. Phil definitely set out to recreate his famous wall of sound with seventeen backing vocalists and an arsenal of instruments that includes guitars, drums, keyboards, synth, bass, percussion, fiddle, sax, flute, trombone, trumpet, organ and vibes.

Proof of the quality of these compositions can be found on the excellent tribute album I'm Your Fan where True Love Leaves No Traces is given a breezy 1970s pop treatment by Dead Famous People & Don't Go Home With Your Hardhat is covered well enough by David McComb & Adam Peters. I loved Death of a Ladies' Man when it was released in 1978 and I appreciate it even more now. Like all of us, Cohen is allowed to shout sometimes. If he doesn't like the production, nothing stops him from re-recording some of these songs.