I'm thinking about removing Leonard Cohen from my LastFM Library. They play his music much too often. I thought I was a fan, obviously, or I would not have added him in the first place. I've heard enough of his songs that I thought were pretty good. But I felt like I should be giving him more credit than was due. The stark truth was that I had a nagging feeling that I was only fooling myself. I didn't really like it much at all, to be brutally honest. Didn't like the sound of his voice. Oh, I suppose some of his songs are quite good. But the ones that keep me from considering him the giant most claim him to be are wretched, indeed.
And it all makes me feel like such a traitor. A dissident from the small congregation of "people who have taste in music. Georgi from Sigur Ros says he grew up listening to Leonard Cohen. I can't count the times I've read, in some music magazine or another, how Leonard Cohen was such a seminal influence in the music of this guy or those guys or those girls and every last one of 'em lined up for two city blocks waiting for their chance to praise Cohen to the skies. I didn't think he deserved to put in the same category of, say, Bob Dylan (who is, himself, one of the artists whose style was a motherlode of material for carrion like Cohen to consume and incorporate into their own inferior sound).
Yes, the Cohen name pulls much weight in the "music snob" community. And so it is very hard for me to make my confession. It is a painful and humiliating thing to own up to. Yet Truth, who walks with the Way and the Life, compels me to get it all off my chest. O, my heart beateth hard, nay, it beateth heavy, and yay, so it do.
So stand down, sit thee down. Hear me out. Conduct yourselfs, the secret is soon whispered, listen...O sweet Jesus, LISTEN:
I'M TAKING LEONARD COHEN OUT OF MY LASTFM LIBRARY.
They play his music much too often. I thought I was a fan, obviously, or I would not have added him in the first place. I've heard enough of his songs that I thought were pretty good. But I felt like I should be giving him more credit than was due. The stark truth was that I had a nagging feeling that I was only fooling myself. I didn't really like it much at all, to be brutally honest. Didn't like the sound of his voice. Oh, I suppose some of his songs are quite good. But the ones that keep me from considering him the giant most claim him to be are wretched, indeed.
Do you feel like you've been here before? Is there something familiar about something you know but you just won't admit it.
And it all makes me feel like such a traitor. A dissident from the small congregation of "people who have taste in music.
There's an expression for what's happening here. DEJA VU. Have you heard about it? No? Oh, man, it's so cool. It's like, you know, you're going along, minding your own business, taking it easy...then you look up and you see something, or you re-experience a sequence of events, whenver you feel like you've been there and done that already, that feeling is called "Deja Vu", dig?
No, I don't know where they came up with the name. It just sounded cool, that's all. It sounded kind of oriental. The whole she-bang has sort of a Hindu feel to it, or Buddhist or some other cool-as-fuck religions from the East. They gave us a lot, that's for sure. The Yin-Yang symbol. The I-Ching. The Tao. "Within You, Without You". The inexplicable concept of a divine cow or a savior with blue skin. The original revelation of "you sow what you reap" in one word: KARMA. Be Here Now. The absolute philosophers embracing the one truth of OM. The sound and smell of 50 sweaty monks chanting hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama rama hari hari...
Truth, who walks with the Way and the Life, compels me to get it all off my chest. O, my heart beateth hard, nay, it beateth heavy, and yay, so it do.
There you go. Perhaps now you will not judge me so harshly for my inability to worship at the altar of Leonard Cohen.
You know what? I am fully formed and in the mood to listen to some of that slick-as-snot jazz music. Them smooth notes so proficiently manipulated into melodies that are as alive as you are. It's a one-sided conversation and I'm speechless. She tells me the same messages but in a hundred different ways. Yeah, I feel like hearing an upright bass playing solos that sound like they belong in another song. There's not a drummer in the world loves the sound of drum sticks tapping a ride cymbal as much as a jazz drummer. It's a sin, in jazzbow Land, to abide by the rules of down beats and the proper time to use the kick drum for it or any other off the cuff placement of it during a particularly long drum solo. I guarantee you're going to get your fair share of ride cymbal tinkling in a jazz man's drum solo.
I mean, how can you compare the music of Leonard Cohen to John Coltrane's? You just can't do it. Even the hardcore Cohen disciples are going to warn you against doing that. Admittedly they are not creating the same kind of music. Cohen can't do jazz, and Coltrane can't do droll lyrics.
And I think I may have just hit that there nail on the head, boyz. It's all that dreadful drollness. Cohen inhabits such a dark place that it threatens to penetrate the defenses I have set up that would keep that particular type of drollness from possessing and ruining me.
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