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Leonard Cohen - The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging) Audio CD

A fair review of the Leonard Cohen "The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging)" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Leonard Cohen reviews here, or go back to the Leonard Cohen tabs.

Leonard Cohen Band: Leonard Cohen
Title: The Essential 3.0 Leonard Cohen (Eco-Friendly Packaging)
Rating:
Release Date: 2008-08-26
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 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 7: The Partisan 8: Famous Blue Raincoat 9: Chelsea Hotel #2 10: Take This Longing 11: Who By Fire 12: The Guests 13: Hallelujah 14: If It Be Your Will 15: Night Comes On 16: I'm Your Man 17: Everybody Knows 18: Tower of Song 19: Ain't No Cure For Love 20: Take This Waltz 21: First We Take Manhattan 22: Dance Me To The End Of Love (Live) 23: The Future 24: Democracy 25: Waiting For The Miracle 26: Closing Time 27: Anthem 28: In My Secret Life 29: Alexandra Leaving 30: A Thousand Kisses Deep 31: Love Itself 32: Seems So Long Ago, Nancy 33: Love Calls You By Name 34: A Singer Must Die 35: Death Of A Ladies' Man 36: The Traitor 37: By The Rivers Dark 38: The Letters

The Essential Leonard Cohen is essential
I think anyone who enjoys his music and appreciates his world view would love this collection. This is a thorough, well-produced overview of Leonard's musical career.


Enhanced by a 3rd disc
0 edition with its third disc is a magnificent retrospective. This 3. 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.
.


A great essential/best-of/hits&faves collection, improved...
It also has a track each from 2 albums overlooked on the previous 2CD "Essential". 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". . . 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.


You can see a complete list of all Leonard Cohen discography, or go back to the Leonard Cohen tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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