Leonard Cohen - Songs From a Room
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Free Music Notes for Songs From a Room
Free Music Review: Improved Sound
Hit: 5 Stars
A much louder audio signal than the earlier CD. Still a good amount of hiss, but that's actually a good sign, as it means they havn't sucked the life out of it with lame noise reduction technology. Besides the louder audio signal, the most obvious improvement upon one listen are the high string parts on bird on a wire. Even more beautiful than before.
Definately worth purchasing even if you own the previous release. Great packaging as well. CD case is shaped like a small book, with a spine and bound pages within. Neat.
Free Music Review: A Classic Album with deserved Remastering
Hit: 5 Stars
I was so excited to learn months ago that Leonard Cohen, the master of poetry in popular music, was having his first three albums rereleased and remastered. Songs from a Room is an acknowledged folk classic and the sound on this album is incredible.
If you are a longtime Cohen fan, then buy this album for the updated sound.
If you are a newcomer who is even slightly interested in Leonard Cohen, then buy this album. You will not be disappointed.
Free Music Review: great atmosphere, beautiful voice
Hit: 4 Stars
This is my first exposure to Leonard Cohen, and I'm pretty impressed. Songs from a Room can best be described like this- take a haunting, quiet atmosphere and combine it with a sad style of softly sung folk-rock including acoustic guitars and other pleasant arrangements. Maybe it's just me but Leonard's voice closely resembles Lou Reed.
It's pretty good, though much like Nick Drake's first album, I have to be in a certain mood in order to really appreciate it.
Highlights include "Story of Isaac" which tells a great story about a father and son going on an adventure, and the devastatingly honest emotions in "The Old Revolution".
The entire album contains the same kind of downbeat mood, and it honestly works really well. I'm not too crazy about "Birds on a Wire" though because the vocal melody is quite predictable, but the rest of the material is really quite solid.
Free Music Review: Half a great album.
Hit: 3 Stars
I guess that most artsits would be lucky to create an album like Songs from a Room; It's half a masterpiece, and most musicains have never even recorded an eighth of one. Of course, Leonard Cohen isn't "most musicians." He's made some of the greatest music of his generation, works that, at their best, rival those of Bob Dylan in terms of sheer poetic vertuosity. Seen in that light, Songs from a Room isn't a great album. Certainly, it's a very good one, a record with plenty of great songs and musical moments. There are cutting lyrical insights here, and several subtly beautiful melodies. Unfortunatly, there are also far too many uninspired songs and uninteresting musical ideas to call this a great album.
The best songs here demonstrate Cohen's unique songwriting abilities: the chilling "Story of Isaac" is a tense, nightmarish study of generational friction and self sacrifice. Cohen's lyrics are bitter, bruised, and full of genuine menace. In the song's spine-tingling conclusion, Cohen spits: "When it all comes down to dust/ I will kill you if I must/ I will help you if I can," brilliantly summarizing a bleak but deeply felt view of human nature. "The Butcher" runs along similar lines; with its brutally simple guitar chords and stark lyrical imagery, the song conveys the feeling of bitter disilousionment with startling accuracy. "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" is as haunting as it is beautiful. Its ghostly, spare melody is the ideal framing device for Cohen's brittle, regretful lyrics- it's a song full of painful memories and quiet loss. Interestingly, one of the best songs here wasn't even written by Cohen- "The Partisan" is a cover of a World War II era ballad that tells the story of a member of the French Resistance. Cohen's performance smolders with quiet, but undeniably present, tension, his voice electric with barely subdued nervous energy.
But not every song on the album is as good as these four- "A Bunch of Lonesome Heros" could have been an excellent song, but its gorgeously dramatic melody is buried under an incredibly unpleasant production, which bathes the music in echo and odd backing instruments. The half-formed lyrics don't help much, either. "You Know Who I Am" matches a convoluted guitar line with some incredibly pretentious lyrics ("I am the distance you put between/ all of the moments that we will be"), and "Tonight Will Be Fine,' despite being bouncy and jaunty, is completely joyless. Cohen's whistling during the final verse is just plain annoying. "The Old Revolution" and "Lady Midnight" are only halfway interesting in terms of lyrics and melody, and each one fails to leave a lasting impression. Finally, there's "Bird on a Wire." Although it's probably the most well-known (and perhaps well-liked) track on this album, I honestly think that it's the weakest song here. Cohen's performance is annoyingly melodramatic, full of painful high notes (a poor attempt to cover up the lack of genuine emotion in the man's voice). The music itself is overly sweet and completely inconsequential: the guitar line is a dull, mumbling cliche, and it's augmented by an equally worthless string section. The lyrics are direct but half-baked. Although the first few lines ("Like a bird on the wire/ like a drunk in a midnight choir/ I have tried. in my way/ to be free") are genuinly poetic, they're counterbalanced by some of Cohen's most insufferably over-earnest declerations ("I will make it all up to thee," he sings, has voice raspy and insincere).
So, that leaves us with an album that, at its best moments, is as powerful and transcendant as anything Cohen has ever written. But at its worst...
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