The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging)

Leonard Cohen | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 26, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 3
• Label: Sony Legacy
• ASIN: B001CU1RS6
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,457 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Suzanne

2. The Stranger Song

3. Sisters Of Mercy

4. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye

5. So Long, Marianne

6. Bird On A Wire

See all 18 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Ain't No Cure For Love

2. Take This Waltz

3. First We Take Manhattan

4. Dance Me To The End Of Love (Live)

5. The Future

6. Democracy

See all 13 tracks on this disc

Disc: 3

1. Seems So Long Ago, Nancy

2. Love Calls You By Name

3. A Singer Must Die

4. Death Of A Ladies' Man

5. The Traitor

6. By The Rivers Dark

See all 7 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enhanced by a 3rd disc, October 23, 2008

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging) (Audio CD)

This 3.0 edition with its third disc is a magnificent retrospective. The first two discs draw heavily on Cohen's legendary earlier work like Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (Disc One, Tracks 1 to 11), and on later albums like Various Positions, I'm Your Man, The Future and Ten New Songs. The live albums are not represented at all, a great pity in the case of Live Songs of which Passing Through and Please Don't Pass Me By are particularly rare & unknown.

No doubt it deserves five stars - particularly since the artist himself made this selection - but I do miss some favorites, like the graceful The Window from Recent Songs (1979), Heart With No Companion from Various Positions (1985), which in my opinion would have been a better choice than Hallelujah (compare John Cale's great cover of this song on the I'm Your Fan tribute album) and Take This Waltz from I'm Your Man (1988).

I completely agree with the choice of tracks from The Future and Ten New Songs, especially the magnificent Alexandra Leaving, now joined by The Rivers Dark on the 3rd disc. Famous Blue Raincoat is joined by Love Calls You By Your Name to represent Songs of Love and Hate (1971). This album's masterpieces like Joan Of Arc and Diamonds In The Mine, amongst my favorites, have been omitted.

The Third Disc

Besides the aforementioned Love Calls You By Your Name and By The Rivers Dark inspired by Psalm 137 about singing by the rivers of Babylon (markedly less optimistic than the Boney M megahit!), it contains one further track each from Songs From A Room, New Skin for the Old Ceremony, Death of a Ladies' Man, Recent Songs, Ten New Songs & Dear Heather.

Gravitas at its gravest, Death of a Ladies' Man has a majestic arrangement in which waves of multi-layered doom-laden vocals unfold in crests and in troughs where a single female voice momentarily caress Cohen's. The instrumental sound is similarly constructed, so when waning a single instrument or hypnotic instrumental pattern comes fleetingly to the fore. With its overall drone-like ambience this song is as oppressive as Lou Reed's The Bells on the Street Hassle album.

This is a great compilation of Cohen's poetic and melodic genius, infused as it is with a unique spiritual quality. One can trace the maturing of his vocals; it became distinctly weightier and wearier from the 1992 album The Future. The trend has continued down to Dear Heather, and it makes the contrast between his voice and the female vocals even more sublime.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great essential/best-of/hits&faves collection, improved..., October 17, 2008

By 

Larry Davis "powerpoplarry" (NYC/Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging) (Audio CD)

The 3rd disc is short but nice, and it's up-to-date, as it includes "The Letters" from Leonard's last studio album "Dear Heather". It also has a track each from 2 albums overlooked on the previous 2CD "Essential"...the 9+ minute title track to his Phil Spector-produced 1977 opus "Death Of A Ladies Man" and "The Traitor" from 1979's "Recent Songs". The other 5 tracks are also essential.

Until a proper boxset gets released, this collection will do quite nicely...I just thought it was kinda CHEESY the way that Sony BMG took the exact SAME booklet and CDs (artwork, catalog numbers, everything) from the 1st edition and threw em into this one. They could have redone the booklet to match this upgrade...I mean, the artwok for "Dear Heather" is not even shown, yet it's represented in the 3rd disc.

Because of this laziness...and they did this on EVERY single one of the 21 "Essential 3.0" titles...they get knocked a star...I also bought the Springsteen and Heart titles...

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid collection, March 31, 2011

By 

Corey Krannacker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging) (Audio CD)

The Essential Leonard Cohen 3.0 is a collection of music from unique Canadian musician Leonard Cohen. From his early works like Suzanne to his middle of the road favorites like Hallelujah, and I'm Your Man favorites like Everybody Knows, Tower of Song, First We Take Manhattan, and the album's title track,this is a solid collection.
The 3.0 version contains a third disc not included on the original album package. What is missing here that I would've enjoyed hearing is Light as the Breeze, the Leonard Cohen song that Billy Joel covered in 1997. Hearing the Cohen original would've been a good inclusion, but other than that this is a solid package.