Popular Problems is the thirteenth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen's Popular Problems is an uncharacteristically quick follow-up to 2012's Old Ideas. That record, cut in the aftermath of a multi-year tour, revitalized him as a recording artist. Producer Patrick Leonard (Madonna, Bryan Ferry) serves as co-writer on all but one tune on Popular Problems. While Cohen's sound has revolved around keyboards since 1988's I'm Your Man, Leonard gets that the real power in the songwriter's lyrics are best relayed through his own own simple melodies.
Popular Problems is Leonard Cohen's thrilling new studio album, where he takes us down into the avenues of our dreams and sets a new tone and speed of hope and despair, grief and joy. Cohen here is an astonished lover rocking to the human condition as "the soul unfolds in the chambers of its longing." His legendary basso resonates as never before with a presence and urgency that arises from the very the depths of the heart. The clarity and strength of these nine hypnotic songs will have us singing them over and over.
Leonard Cohen's Popular Problems is an uncharacteristically quick follow-up to 2012's Old Ideas. That record, cut in the aftermath of a multi-year tour, revitalized him as a recording artist. Producer Patrick Leonard (Madonna, Bryan Ferry) serves as co-writer on all but one tune on Popular Problems…
OLD IDEAS is the twelfth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released in January 2012. It is Cohen's highest-charting release in the United States, reaching number 3 on the Billboard 200, 44 years after the release of his first album. The album topped the charts in 11 countries, including Finland, where Cohen became, at the age of 77, the oldest chart-topper, during the album's debut week.
You Want It Darker is the fourteenth and final studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released on October 16, 2016, by Columbia Records, nineteen days before Cohen's death. The album was created towards the end of his life and focuses on death, God, and humor. It was released to critical acclaim. The title track was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance in January 2018. After touring extensively between 2008 and 2013, Leonard Cohen began to suffer "multiple fractures of the spine" among other physical problems, according to his son Adam Cohen. Due to Leonard Cohen's mobility issues, You Want It Darker was recorded in the living room of his home in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles and then sent by e-mail to his musical collaborators.
Given the subject matter in its title track, Leonard Cohen's advanced age (82), it's tempting to hear You Want It Darker as a last album. In advance of its release, he even told The New Yorker that he was ready to die, only to walk the comment back later. Whether it is or isn't, You Want It Darker is a hell of a record…