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While procrastinating on my calc homework today I gave Leonard Cohen's Death of A Ladies' Man another full listen. The highs are high and the lows are so abysmally low on this thing that I've got more to say about it than any other album of his.
I can't talk about this record without touching on its ridiculous backstory. Apparently there was no end to the recording sessions, at least not one that was agreed on by both parties. Phil Spector, in typical fashion, was totally erratic, had guns lying around all over the place and pointed a loaded pistol at Leonard Cohen's throat. Then he just up and left with the tapes one day, all with unpolished performances from LC. Since Spector always had his entourage of heavies with him, there was no way for Cohen to retrieve the tapes short of hiring his own mercenaries and meeting Spector in armed combat, so he just gave up.
I think the first four tracks of Death of A Ladies' Man are great. True Love Leaves No Traces is particularly beautiful, and I honestly really love the corny doo-wop charm of Memories. Makes me wish I had a girl to dance to it with (though she'd probably need to wear steel-toed boots as a safety precaution). I think the real charm of this album is how anguished Cohen sounds against the cacophonous brass section and the raucous 1960s girl group wall-of-sound production, like he's fighting to be heard. It really does give the impression of an aging, belligerently intoxicated ladies' man singing karaoke at a bar while the lady on his arm becomes increasingly fed-up with him. The three track run from I Left a Woman Waiting to Fingerprints is just plain awful. It's like a shit sandwich. I Left a Woman Waiting and Fingerprints are like slices of stale white bread: completely forgettable, entirely trite, absolutely nothing going for it. Smeared between them is easily the worst song in LC's entire discography. Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On (see subject) is such a hilarious song that I'd typically be obliged to cut it some slack, but the production is genuinely difficult to listen to, and not in a good way. The beginning sounds like something out of I Just Can't Wait to Be King, the backing track is more discordant than my third grade class on recorders, and Lenny's vocal performance doesn't do it any favours. Worst of all, it's five minutes and thirty-eight seconds long. The coke must've been pure in 1977 because somehow Phil Spector got Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg to do backup vocals on this execrable song. The album's saving grace is the title track it ends on. On Death of A Ladies' Man, Phil Spector finally decides to tone down his bullshit, and the result is this wonderful 9-minute ballad, a personal favourite of mine in LC's discography. I guess you go for nothing, if you really wanna go that far.
I can't talk about this record without touching on its ridiculous backstory. Apparently there was no end to the recording sessions, at least not one that was agreed on by both parties. Phil Spector, in typical fashion, was totally erratic, had guns lying around all over the place and pointed a loaded pistol at Leonard Cohen's throat. Then he just up and left with the tapes one day, all with unpolished performances from LC. Since Spector always had his entourage of heavies with him, there was no way for Cohen to retrieve the tapes short of hiring his own mercenaries and meeting Spector in armed combat, so he just gave up.
I think the first four tracks of Death of A Ladies' Man are great. True Love Leaves No Traces is particularly beautiful, and I honestly really love the corny doo-wop charm of Memories. Makes me wish I had a girl to dance to it with (though she'd probably need to wear steel-toed boots as a safety precaution). I think the real charm of this album is how anguished Cohen sounds against the cacophonous brass section and the raucous 1960s girl group wall-of-sound production, like he's fighting to be heard. It really does give the impression of an aging, belligerently intoxicated ladies' man singing karaoke at a bar while the lady on his arm becomes increasingly fed-up with him. The three track run from I Left a Woman Waiting to Fingerprints is just plain awful. It's like a shit sandwich. I Left a Woman Waiting and Fingerprints are like slices of stale white bread: completely forgettable, entirely trite, absolutely nothing going for it. Smeared between them is easily the worst song in LC's entire discography. Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On (see subject) is such a hilarious song that I'd typically be obliged to cut it some slack, but the production is genuinely difficult to listen to, and not in a good way. The beginning sounds like something out of I Just Can't Wait to Be King, the backing track is more discordant than my third grade class on recorders, and Lenny's vocal performance doesn't do it any favours. Worst of all, it's five minutes and thirty-eight seconds long. The coke must've been pure in 1977 because somehow Phil Spector got Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg to do backup vocals on this execrable song. The album's saving grace is the title track it ends on. On Death of A Ladies' Man, Phil Spector finally decides to tone down his bullshit, and the result is this wonderful 9-minute ballad, a personal favourite of mine in LC's discography. I guess you go for nothing, if you really wanna go that far.
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