Consumer Guide Album

Leonard Cohen: Popular Problems [Columbia, 2014]
Exercise lubricated his voice for a while, but it's dried out again. And when you're croaking the way Cohen is croaking--pun actively regretted, Cohen if anyone has earned the right to call his impending death by however dignified a name he deems appropriate--it takes more than a corps of angels and a Quebecquois Madonna collaborator to turn your verse into song. I admire and when I concentrate enjoy most of these tracks, in particular the spiritually advanced "You Got Me Singing," the fondly remembered "My Oh My," and the consciously complicit "Almost Like the Blues." But the only one I love is "Slow," which is not about how considerately he makes love if that's what he's making these days. It's about how unhurriedly he approaches the death that impends for us all. B+