Songs from a Room by Leonard Cohen (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Songs from a Room

Artist name: Leonard Cohen

Year: 1969

Number of discs: one

Label: Columbia Records

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: probably my mother

Buy it on Amazon: $48.00

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have heard of this record before, but I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to it. It’s the third Leonard Cohen record that I’ll have reviewed, and the previous two were:

Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967): 4/5

Songs of Love and Hate (1971): 2/5

What I expected

Mopey folk rock.

What it was actually like

I wanted to like this, but I found most of the songs depressing, which was annoying to me because I’m not in the mood to be depressed. They were also mostly extremely similar, and there was not a whole lot to them – largely just vocals and guitar, quite bare and lonesome.

Speaking of lonesome, A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes sounded like it might have included a didgeridoo, and possibly also a kazoo.

The two final songs on the second side, Lady Midnight and Tonight Will Be Fine, used the same instrumentation and vocal style, but were both relatively more upbeat than the rest, so I considered them to have been my favorites. The latter even included some whistling that made it sound happy.

Grade

2/5: weak, but I was able to listen to the whole thing