Album Review: Leonard Cohen - Popular Problems

Leonard Cohen, in his quickest turnout of records since the ‘70s, has followed up 2012’s wonderful Old Ideas with the equally lovely Popular Problems. Rare is the gift of the songwriter who can leave you hanging on every word as if they might reveal a hidden secret of life, but there really only ever has been one Leonard Cohen.

Always channelling a deep-rooted melancholia about life, over the nine songs here Mr Cohen manages to reveal yet new sides to his songwriting. Sure, the religious themes, love and sensuality still permeate through the cracks on the record, yet the refined and accepting sense of hope we see here is something new and quite special. The man’s ironic charm and wit though still shine through despite it all: “There’s torture, and there’s killing, and there’s all my bad reviews,” he croons in Almost Like The Blues. As is often the case with Cohen, the songs themselves are deceptively simple, employing a stripped-back arrangement of electric organ, piano and female vocals as the norm.

Yet the oddball funk of Nevermind and the haunting gospel of Born In Chains show there’s something more to the man than the folk poet troubadour of the ‘60s. Suitably, Cohen, now 80 years old, leaves us with his trademark charm as the album closes – “You got me singing even though the world is gone” – and that’s just him all over.