I happened to pick up the latest Leonard Cohen album, Old Ideas, on Spotify this morning. T’was purely by chance, as I noticed that he had a song in the Billboard 200, and was intrigued to see what he was kicking out these days, after an 8 year recording break.
What I’ve found is an AWESOME album – there’s still Leonard’s usual smooth style, but now it has a modern twist to it, and it feels WRONG that an old man’s voice growling in my ear is exciting me as much as this! haha! (ANYHOW is especially disturbing in this context, ha!)
Stand out tracks include:
GOING HOME
LULLABY
and DIFFERENT SIDES
Internationally, the album has done fantastically, scoring a top two chart position in most places where it’s been released (including a UK number 2 in the album charts, number three in the US Billboard 200).
Well worth a listen if you have a spare hour, and my advice would be not to approach this with dark pre-conceptions from his old stuff still in your ears – this sound is comparatively modern, refreshing, unique, and bound to please! 🙂
You can stream the album on Spotify via this link.