I am not ready to review the new Leonard Cohen album yet, like the man himself “I always like it slow, slow is in my blood” or at least I wanna take a breather to let Popular Problems, his 13th album, and one of his bests, better than Old Ideas, which was pretty fucking awesome in its own right, sink in a little further. For one thing, I like it to much right now and want it to wear off nd for another thing I’ve only heard it twice.
How good is Popular Problems? The first track “Slow” is better than the second track “Almost Like The Blues” and the second track is one of the best of the year. How great is it? It makes almost being 80 years old as cool as humanly possible. How great is it? untethered by as little as one bad song, it is as consistent as the new Justin Townes earle only deeper. How great is it? It is so great I think it may well be the album of the year. It is so great it is the greatness that you find in later period Nabakov, like “Transparent Things” -and it is the ululating completeness of something like a mid-period Nabakov like “The Vane Sisters”. I guess I mean it is eastern European in nature.
Still, I will tell you where you can decide for yourself whether I am overstating the case. Here is the NPR link (it will be down within a week so hurry up) where it is streaming.
Grade You want a grade? Grade: A
