Old Ideas

Leonard Cohen | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 31, 2012)
• Original Release Date: 2012
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Columbia
• ASIN: B0067LY4WG
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #1 in Music > Pop > Singer-Songwriters
  • #1 in Music > Rock > Singer-Songwriters
  • #1 in Music > Rock > Folk Rock

Editorial Reviews

From our master singer-songwriter, Leonard Cohen, here are ten new songs that mine the heart, shake the body and break the boundaries as everybody knows only Leonard can do. A signature of our time, Leonard's baritone holds us like the voices of Hank, Frank and Ray. These are songs that nobody knows and everyone will treasure.

Fans were given a hint of what to expect when Cohen made remarks as the recipient of the Principe de Asturias Prize for literature in Spain in October 2011.

"As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. And the instructions were these...Never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity & beauty."

The album was produced with Patrick Leonard, Anjani Thomas, Ed Sanders and Dino Soldo. Complementing Cohen's signature baritone on Old Ideas are the exceptional vocalists Dana Glover, Sharon Robinson, The Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley Webb) and Jennifer Warnes. The album's cover design and drawings are Cohen's own.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of his best, January 31, 2012

By 

Sid Nuncius (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old Ideas (Audio CD)

This is a truly great Leonard Cohen album in my view - something I've not been able to say for too many years. The music often sounds delicate but has a laid back robustness about it, too, with his trademark simple melodies and a very welcome varied sound and style, with elements of country, blues, gospel and rock. There are also the beautiful and familiar female backing vocals, and some simply magnificent work from a varied band - the trumpet on "Amen," for example, is unexpected and absolutely spellbinding.

Cohen's voice these days has passed through the Whisky & Cigarettes stage and is well on the way to a Chronic Bronchitis sound, but he still has that fabulous depth and resonance beneath the weariness and the creaks. He hovers between singing and speaking for much of this album even more than previously, but as a friend once said to me, "No one can sing a Leonard Cohen song the way Cohen himself can't." How true. He is miked very close so, particularly when listening on headphones, it really feels as though he is present and whispering into your ear.

All this is perfect for the songs here, whose lyrics are Cohen at his best: thoughtful, allusive, melancholy, witty and sometimes provoking. The religious imagery he has always used so brilliantly is well in evidence, and it is striking how much of it is now specifically Christian. Broken relationships, suffering and death have always been in the corner of Cohen's eye whatever he is writing about. They are often in plain sight here and are treated with insight, resignation, compassion and beauty. The old witty twinkle and his self-deprecatory streak are still there, though, and shine through what is often a very elegiac atmosphere. He still has that fantastic ability somehow to get to the heart of things both when he's speaking straightforwardly and even when direct meaning is elusive. These are songs to take into your heart, nurture and allow to grow there.

I think that several of these songs, including Amen, Show Me The Place and Different Sides are likely to become Cohen classics, but there is nothing to be sanitized and exploited by talent-show winners here and if you don't like Leonard Cohen this album certainly won't convert you. However, those legions of us who know that he was born like this, he had no choice, he was born with the gift of a golden voice will be delighted and deeply satisfied that that voice, both in what he writes and how he performs it, has lost none of its magnificent lustre.

I recommend his album wholeheartedly. I suspect that it may be a masterpiece

52 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Coming For Me Darling, January 31, 2012

By 

Lightman (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Old Ideas (Audio CD)

This is from Banjo, one of the songs on LC's great new album, Old Ideas.

It's a broken banjo bobbing
On the dark infested sea

It's coming for me darling
No matter where I go

Its duty is to harm me
My duty is to know

What's going on here? What is the dark sea infested with? Why is the banjo broken, menacing? How come it's after the 77 year old songwriter, intent on harming the gracious and self deprecating old fellow?

We never learn. Perhaps this is a merciful thing...

Over the course of his lifetime Cohen's ever more gravelly baritone has at times been the voice of the prophet, the muse, the lecher, the lover, the poet, the madman and oftentimes, the priest. All are represented in Old Ideas, a remarkable new collection of songs by the master.

This is a starkly existential album. It traces a thin line along the edge of an abyss. But even as it does so, it holds out the hope of redemption and the promise of restoration - a coming out of the darkness and into the light.

Darkness is one song I just can't get out of my mind. It's a taut and sinister twelve bar that's at any moment ready to snap. The tension is unbelievable:

I caught the darkness
It was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
Drinking from your cup
I said, "Is this contagious?"
You said, "Just drink it up."

Meanwhile Leonard finger picks insistently, Neil Larsen weaves a haunting refrain on the Hammond B3, and when Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters kick in with a vocal of urgent and barely restrained desire it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

How about this from Different Sides:

I to my side call the meek and the mild
You to your side call the Word
By virtue of suffering I claim to have won
You claim to have never been heard

Both of us say there are laws to obey
But frankly I don't like your tone
You want to change the way I make love
I want to leave it alone

The production of this album is exceptional. The arrangements are spare and precise, tightly wound, and flawlessly executed by an outstanding group of musicians, several of whom accompanied Cohen on his recent epic world tour.

Another song I just can't get away from is Show Me the Place.

Show me the place, help me roll away the stone
Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone
Show me the place where the Word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began

The piano is distant even as it carries with it an abiding sadness and pain.

And then Come Healing:

And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb

Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

O, see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart

There's no doubt about it. Old Ideas is a masterpiece.

49 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DEAR MUSIC APPRECIATORS, January 31, 2012

By 

Andrew H. Lee "Constant Listener" (Snohomish, WA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Old Ideas (Audio CD)

Dear Music Appreciators,

I come to this album as one who knows little about Leonard Cohen and his music. I've admired both the Jeff Buckley and Brandi Carlile covers of "Hallelujah," and I remember liking the Concrete Blonde cover of "Everybody Knows" when it appeared on the PUMP UP THE VOLUME soundtrack. I know Cohen is Canadian and that he is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential singer-songwriters of our time. Despite the countless times I've read his name when reading about music over the years, I just never got around to him. Some of you may consider this an unforgivable admission of musical ignorance, while other Cohen newbies like me can take solace in the knowledge that they are not alone.

And now I see Leonard Cohen, seventy-seven years old, sitting in a black suit, black hat, and black sunglasses on his enigmatic, black-shadowed album cover at the top of the Amazon sales charts and I can't help but think "it must be time for me to get around to Leonard Cohen..."

Hearing OLD IDEAS has taught me that popping my Cohen cherry so relatively late in my musical fandom is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because apparently I have now just skimmed the surface of a true treasure trove that I can savor digging into deeply for the first time. A curse because these are treasures that could have been with me all along. I have been missing out until now but it is time to make up for lost time with Leonard.

I imagine true fans of the man will already know all about this album. They will already know that this is another great one and that it's worth the time they will put into it. Casuals and newbies who are wondering about what the true fans already know can know the following now:

This is a musical album of uncommonly unaffected poetry and grace, encompassing a variety of musical styles, and delivered in a gravelly speak-sing baritone. A rich combination to be sure, and it all goes down like an acquired taste - whiskey, or coffee, or...caviar.

At first listen the most immediately accessible songs seem to be both the first ("Going Home") and the last ("Different Sides"), and over the course of the eight tracks in between Cohen confidently plays the game of "Operation" on the body of the human condition.

If you're wavering at all on this purchase, ask yourself if you're the kind of person who might enjoy an album that opens with the singer talking about himself in the third person:

"I love to speak with Leonard, he's a sportsman and a shepherd, he's a lazy b _ s t _ _ d living in a suit..."

Basically, this is music for smart people. And if you're still reading this then either you're already a smart person, or, after hearing this album (like me) you'll be that much closer to becoming one...

Sincerely,

Constant Listener