An excellent tribute album of Leonard Cohen songs put out by a variety of late 80s/early 90s alternative artists collected by Nick Cave. Here is the song list:
- REM, First We Take Manhattan. Typical, whiny REM song. If you like them, you'll like it.
- Ian McCulloch, Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye. Very ethereal.
- The Pixies, I Can't Forget. The Pixies steal the show with this rocking cover. It's hard to listen to this song and not make the devil sign while thrashing your head.
- That Petrol Emotion, Stories Of The Street. A faithful rendition of Cohen's song. Pretty good.
- The Lilac Time, Bird On A Wire. It passes.
- Geoffrey Oryema, Suzanne. Sung like a Paresian street musician. I didn't like it.
- James, So Long Marianne. It passes.
- Jean-Louis Murat, Avelanche. If you like french rock, you might like this song. I didn't.
- David McComb & Adam Peters, Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On. A better version that what you'll find on Death Of A Ladies' Man.
- The House Of Love, Who By Fire. I never cared for this song. They sing it a lot like Cohen, so I don't like it.
- Lloyd Cole, Chelsea Hotel. Pretty good.
- Robert Forster, Tower Of Song. A mediocre cover, in the style of rockabilly.
- Peter Astor, Take This Longing. OK.
- Dead Famous People, True Love Leaves No Traces. Sooooo much better than the muddled mess on Ladies' Man.
- Bill Pritchard, I'm Your Man. Sung less subtly than Cohen's version, but still good.
- Fatima Mansions, A Singer Must Die. Excellent.
- Nick CaveAnd The Bad Seeds, Tower Of Song. Ironically, Cave's own cover is the worst song on the album. Not only is it already covered on the album, and a bad choice to sing (IMHO, Cohen is the only person qualified to sing it), but Cave slaughters any appreciation of the song by singing each verse in a different style. Maybe he was just trying to convey the idea of a 'tower of song' by switching from country to gloom rock to hard rock, but he didn't have to be so sloppy about it.
- John Cale, Hallelujah. Sung in the same way as Cohen, but Cale actually sounds good doing it.
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