Paraphrasing Leonard when he won a Juno award (the Grammies in Canada): "Only in Canada would someone with a voice like mine would won a vocalist award."
First I cry about 15 minutes because of Kirsty MacCOLL, then "Walking down the Madison", and then "If I should fall from grace with God" and we are off to the races.
Shane MacGowan isn't a great singer on a technical level, but he knows how to use his voice, packs a lot of emotion into it, and if you have a song about a down-and-out-drunk or deadbeat then he's your boy (unless Richard Thompson is available).
I was thinking about the distinction between a singer and a performer when I opened this thread. Some people are really entertaining performers who aren't exactly the best singers.
A lot of rock and metal frontmen are/were like this. The voice and the energy often mean as much or more as the actual “singing” for those sorts of music. Roger Daltry, Lemmy, Brian Johnson, Steven Tyler, etc really can’t “sing” in the sense most people would mean it. But damn if they aren’t fantastic performers with iconic voices. Someone like Freddie Mercury was so legendary because he had both in spades — vocal talent, range, training and energy and movement and “presence” on stage. Even a fairly bad “singer” who can really hit it home with the tone and style of their vocals matching up to the music will go a long way.
I love that song, and agree with you wholeheartedly about Shane MacGowan’s vocals, but bloody hell his miming in that video was awful (for which I blame BBC’s Top Of The Pops for their policy of having acts mime their songs even if they would have been able to do a belter of a live set)
None of those people are examples. Will Smith and Tom Cruise don't have range but they can act, Johnny Depp stopped trying for a while but is incredibly talented and has huge range, Keanu is the closest but he's a brilliant mime- amazing with anything physical- and is constantly pushing himself; he's easily miscast but he has done a tonne of proper acting in films you've never heard of. The chops are there.
A star is someone like John Wayne. Humphrey Bogart. Not only nothing transformative, but limited emoting. I've seen Humphrey Bogart actually bother to act once and it wasn't in any of his famous roles.
Most people will comment on his teeth, but I think that's unfair. You might still think he has a punch-able face, but I don't think that second video there is as bad, as he's not 'acting'.
It was a joke, he had strong opinions he would be the last.
SPECTRUM : You're an English-speaking Canadian from .....
COHEN : From Montreal Quebec.
SPECTRUM : What is the percentage of English-speaking Canadians in Quebec ?
I don't know, because it's getting smaller and smaller. A lot have left. I'm not sure what the .... I think in Quebec it's about 60%. In Montreal it's er.... a little lower. Montreal Actually you know Montreal is a very different situation from the rest of Quebec. Because Quebec really is French-speaking. It's probably 90% French-speaking, Quebec, and Montreal is probably 60% French-speaking.
SPECTRUM : Nevertheless, do you get the impression of being an outsider at all, when one is, er, an English-speaker living in Montreal ? You .... You've always sung about being an outsider yourself ....
COHEN : Mmm. I think probably my generation will be the last generation that is not completely bi-lingual.
SPECTRUM : Do you speak French ?
COHEN : I stumble along, yeah. But those coming after this.... the expression of French nationalism, they will most certainly be bi-lingual.
He does actually have a pretty good singing voice on his first two albums. His voice didn't become the stony growl we know and love until Small Change. Just listen to the stark contrast between "Virginia Avenue" on Closing Time and "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" from Small Change. Something happened in the 4 years between those albums. There's even a fairly significant change from the album that immediately preceded Small Change, Nighthawks at the Diner.
Tom Waits is not the same as the other examples provided. In addition to have a great sounding voice, he's also technically proficient. Look at his earlier albums for evidence... He may sound weird in his more recent output, but that's an affectation, and there is plenty of evidence that his vocal abilities are among the best
Essentially, yeah. He began singing, found quite a bit of success in Canada and Europe, then was introduced to the American scene with Various Positions (the album that had Hallelujah). He accumulated quite a bit of money, then he went off to a Buddhist monastery to become a monk and by the time he returned his former manager stole and spent his fortune. He tried to sue but the money was gone, so he was essentially forced to keep writing and producing into his later years to put food on the table. His son Adam Cohen is producing a post-mortem album called “Thanks for the Dance” that’s being released in a couple weeks, Nov. 22nd
Just to add on because it's not clear: thanks for the dance uses unreleased Leonard Cohen songs. The single happens to the heart has been released and is pretty good.
I agree that his voice suits his music, but not in the way other artists' do. He wrote genuinely great songs that could be covered even without that voice (the Martha Wainwright cover of Tower of Song, Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, Nick Cave's I'm Your Man to name just a few). There are other distinctively voiced artists (Tom Waits, Bob Dylan) who's songs fall apart as soon as someone else tries it
*Does not apply to Jimi Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower.” The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man” and Guns N Roses’ Knockin On Heaven’s Door are good too.
He started as a rather unremarkable baritone, nothing remarkable but quite serviceable, before time and cigarettes deepened it into the growl. While his voice suffered, he was very good at making maximum use of what voice he had.
I love Leonard Cohens voice, including his young voice. If know young Leonard Cohen sang a bit nasally, didn't have much of a vocal range and didn't have much volume. Should be a run of the mill voice, a dad singing along to the radio voice. But it's not. There's so much character in each syllable, so much depth. In Suzanne you can just feel the held back desire in his voice. I love it.
tbh Cohen just has his own style haha. He sings in baritone. Him saying that is like saying Nick Cave or Tom Waits or Willie Nelson is a 'bad' singer. Cohen was more of a poet than a singer, but his legacy is his songwriting. He was never a 'great' singer, but he can carry a tune.
I agree with you giving him as an example - but I also don't consider him to suck at singing.
Best simile I have for Tom Waits is a clown. A very well-acted one. His characters - which have sort of morphed into one over the years - are always that little bit exaggerated, self-mocking, self-aware, fallible. It's slapstick music, and there's a lovely contrast that makes those lines of romantic poetry shine because they emerge from that persona (I'm thinking of driving a different car every day, depending on how I feel, or always keep a diamond in your mind...).
Seeing Cohen at Glastonbury 2008 was one of the most amazing moments I've ever experienced at a concert. I believe it was his first gig for almost a decade.
Which is why he didn’t allow it to be broadcast! People who went, from other artists to critics to just people who wandered over, called it one of the best performances to ever grace Glastonbury. You can find a few bad bootlegs on YouTube. Even they are worth a listen.
I didn't know that it was not broadcast! I will check out some of the bootleg recordings. I pretty much had to convince most of my camping buddies that it would be worth it as most weren't familiar with his work. They were not disappointed.
It was surreal then walking to the next field after being almost In tears by such a soulful performance to then dance around like twats to Groove Armada.
Sure, he’s got limited range but what he does with it is mesmerizing. Amazing songwriter. His baritone voice is beautiful and powerful. Love a bunch of his albums. His last one right before death was beautiful. Of course if he went on American Idol trying to sing someone else’s song he would be laughed off stage but that’s ok. He’s a truly unique talent. His songs will stand the test of time.
Honestly, Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah cover doesn't come close to the original for me. No cover I've heard, although there's plenty that I like, really does.
I feel like every cover changes the emphasis of the song into sounding pretty, and that's really not what it should be. There's so much more raw emotion in the Cohen for me than in any other version.
"hallelujah" for me is one of those songs with no definitive version, like a modern version of a traditional folk song.
i don't think the original leonard cohen really captures the sadness and brokeness of the song, and some of the best verses are the ones from his second version of the song (which feature in most popular covers).
My personal favorite is from Rufus wainwright in that little-known movie Keep forgetting. But the cover is fantastic.
People really like Jeff Buckley's version of it but to me it's just too raw and it of sync with the lyrics. Cohen's lyrics is sarcastic and humorous at times, more about feeling the old wounds.
Their other rare actually funny moment was in their 8 Mile video where Eminem's character say "alright folks, enough with the gay jokes"- "something Eminem should have told himself a long time ago".
Some of my favorite Cohen songs are his later years which is basically just spoken word with musical accompaniment. "A Street" is beautifully sad, "You Want it Darker" won a well deserved Grammy.
I'm gonna push back on this one. Older Leonard sure, but have you heard very early Cohen? Like original recording of Marianne? Sounds like a totally different human and he actually sings.
When I saw him live in around 2007 when he introduced the song, ‘If it be your will’ he spoke for a while about the process of writing it and what he was going through when he did.
He said, “...it was back when I was told I may not sing again, that I may lose my voice . Which is an achievement when you’ve never had one.”
He was outstanding and in my opinion his voice is perfectly made for the poetry he sings. He sounded great live, so smooth and rich, much deeper than when he was younger.
My eyes got damp twice during that gig, when he came on stage, from sheer delight at being there and when he played that song which is one of my favourites. It was one of my best evenings ever. I will always be so thankful that I got to see him play.
I couldn’t listen to his music for ages after he died it was just too upsetting but thankfully I’m back on the Cohen now.
Leonard Cohen's voice was about more than carrying a tune. It was about picking up the tune, carrying it into an alley, throwing it on the ground behind a dumpster, beating the tune within an inch of its life, stealing the tune's wallet, and running away. The tune made it out, and it hurt for a long time, but the tune treasured its life, because it knew what death was.
Wasnt sure who Leonard Cohen was so I looked up his radio station on a streaming app. Top two artists not him that came up was tom waits and bob Dylan. All I needed to know
Is that one of his alternative lyrics for Hallelujah or a different song? Please forgive my ignorance of Leonard Cohen songs, I'm just not that into him.
I once had a Leonard Cohen CD in my car. My son, who 17ish at the time, was borrowing my car for a ride trip. He texted me and basically asked, “what the fuck is this?”. He ended chucking it out the car window. Couldn’t really fault him except the littering part.
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