Leonard Cohen

The dark, poetic music of Leonard Cohen should be listed on the table of periodic
elements -- when you discover it, it suddenly seems as necessary as oxygen. This
collection spans his thirty-five-year career, and it doesn't leave out much. Originally a
Canadian poet and country-music fan, Cohen moved to New York in the late Sixties and
became a folk singer. Now a Buddhist, Cohen has always been concerned with t... More >

Nothing's perfect, and most of his albums are worth purchasing separately, but at least this double CD picks all the indelibles off the supple 1968 Songs of Leonard Cohen, and half of them off the stark 2001 Ten New Songs. Also, true peace-on-earthers will appreciate the depressive gesture, as well as a seasonal party game: a Bush-era rewrite of the cultural-revolutionary threnody "First We Take Manhattan." Take it from: "They sentenced me to 30 days of rehab/For trying to have my coke and eat it too/I'll show those pricks the silver spoon that we have/First we take the statehouse, then we take D.C." (Grade: A)