Leonard Cohen Collection

Beautiful 2008 five CD box containing digitally remastered editions of a quintet of seminal Leonard Cohen albums: Songs of Leonard Cohen (1968), Various Positions (1985), I'm Your Man (1988), The Future (1992) and Ten New Songs (2001). 46 tracks including 'Suzanne', 'Tower Of Song', 'Sisters Of Mercy' and 'First We Take Manhattan'. Columbia.

A limited guitar player at best, and with a voice that hardly spans a couple of octaves, Leonard Cohen has nonetheless fashioned a legacy of gorgeously realized songs that reach deep into the heart of lust, ill- and well-fated romance, hope, and redemption, and if he doesn't sing like an angel, he could certainly mesmerize one with the melody, lilt, and power of his songs…

When Jennifer Warnes recorded this 1987 collection of songs by Leonard Cohen, Cohen’s career was in undeserved decline and Warnes, who served as one of Cohen’s back-up singers in the early ‘70s, had been experiencing great success with a series of country-pop and romantic movie-themed adult-contemporary hits. “First We Take Manhattan” and “Ain’t No Cure for Love” turned out to be previews for Cohen’s comeback album, 1988’s I’m Your Man, and Warnes’ interpretations forced critics to seriously evaluate her as a talented, often overlooked and underrated singer. The arrangements are less quirky than Cohen’s own attempts at mainstream pop. Unlike Judy Collins whose Cohen covers emphasize his solemnity and stick to the songs’ folk roots, Warnes takes a liberal approach, unafraid to turn “Bird On a Wire” into a dance number, or locate the nite-jazz and cinematic heart lurking within the title track, or use guitarists such as Robben Ford and Stevie Ray Vaughan on “Manhattan” to make a grander musical point. Her duet with Cohen on “Joan of Arc” is riveting and grandiose. A classic, impeccably written, arranged, performed, sung, and produced throughout. This 20th Anniversary Edition adds four tracks, including a live version of “Joan of Arc” and a delicate read of “If It Be Your Will.”

Canadian poet Leonard Cohen sings with great weight and authority and his lyrics are among the most elegant and scripted of the rock era. This collection is culled from his past three albums (1988's I'm Your Man, 1992's The Future, and 1994's Cohen Live) and shows a man whose voice has deepened to the point of grim, foreboding death with lyrics sharpened to masterful precision.

Leonard Cohen's deeply personal first LPs came out at a time when many of his peers were issuing furious, counterculture-inspired rants; he clearly had little interest in sticking with the pack at the time. So it makes a certain kind of contrary sense that Cohen would put out an offbeat, topical collection two-and-a-half decades later. The Future is an odd duck of an album; it's also brave, funny, and fascinating. "Give me back the Berlin Wall/ Give me Stalin and St. Paul", Cohen petitions sardonically in the title track, adding, "I've seen the future, brother: it is murder". "Can't run no more with the lawless crowd/ While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud", he intones in "Anthem"; in "Democracy", he name- checks Tiananmen Square while surveying the United States ("The cradle of the best and of the worst"). Cohen has only improved with age as a vocalist; here, he sounds like a cross between Mark Knopfler and Barry White.