I recently got "The Best of Leonard Cohen" as a gift from my girlfriend's father and stepmother and I absolutely loved it. some of the best songwriting I've ever heard in my life. so today I was on my lunch break at work and decided to walk across to the record store (my work is in a mall) after making my order at the eatery beside my work. I take a look around, and notice "The Essential Leonard Cohen 3.0"; a $30 value, for $12 along a rack of similar sets at the same offer. so of course as I loved "The Best of", I was wanting to check out more. so I got it. didn't give it a listen until I got home and after my girlfriend left. as most of the first disc consists of every single song on "The Best Of" I skip to the ones I havn't heard. all good. then I get to "Everybody knows"; and thought "Yeah, cool. sort of a totally different thing going on. somewhat of a Eurythmics-like beat. cool...". loved it. got a kick out of it. listened to it twice, infact. then I got to "Tower of Song". similar thing. electric. very loud baritone voice. Nick Cave covered it? nice...disc 1 end. put it in the second disc and WTF? did Leonard Cohen go fucking nuts in the 80's?!? it's all loudly read poetry spoke baritone over what sounds like learner's keyboard sample songs, with female backup singers!!! NNNOOOOOO. I thought I had found the perfect artist with the perfect discography!!! Why does it always get ruined by the fuckin' 80's?! Rush, Yes, King Crimson. now Leonard fuckin' Cohen. FUCK the 80's. I mean...not that it's bad. it's all well done. it's just AGED. it's fuckin'...GOOFY. and this isn't just the 80's. his entire career from then on is like this!! WTF, man? you had it goin' on! it's to the extent where I don't wonder if it's all a joke. I KNOW it's a joke. it's one big mean joke. he's doing this on purpose. he has to be. he's evily laughing right now. damn canadians.

but hey disc 3 is back to good 'ole Cohen so far. "Seems so long ago, Nancy" is chill. and if all else fails, atleast I still have "Famous Blue Raincoat", "Chelsea Hotel no 2" and "The Partisan" to light candles to.

That's pretty much my impression of Leonard Cohen, though I really haven't heard enough to warrant an opinion...I've heard him called "Canada's Bob Dylan", if I'm not mistaken, and some of what I've heard is almost worthy of that...

But then my (Canadian) philosophy professor played a song in class called...something like "Love is a Drug", or something to do with love (the class was philosophy of love and sex), and it was really cheesy 80-style stuff.

If anyone could point me towards a couple good Cohen albums, I'd check 'em out, though.