Why am I reviewing this?

Review Score: (2/10)
Dreck, schlock, cheese... What an embarrassment it must be for Cohen -- if he actually does have a sense of shame -- that this recording exists still... what an, um, exercise in humility. Back when I was a younger man, more inclined to overconceptualize things, I thought that maybe the impossibly syrupy and trite arrangements were some sort of vast self-parody on Cohen's part, that he was deliberately mocking himself, achieving some sort of perverse self-transcendence by allowing himself to be contextualized in such an asinine way... I kind of got off on it, actually. "Memories," in particular, seemed more like a flagelletory orgy of self-contempt and a bad joke at the author's own expense than a sincere attempt to craft song. Maybe it was... I've briefly picked up this album to give it a spin after many years and just keep WINCING (and grinning). Poor Lenny. "Don't go home with your hard-on" IS a funny little keeper, among the wreckage -- with inaudible background vocals, so the liner notes claim, by Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg... But this album -- for Cohen's sake, leave it ALONE.

More Reviews:

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• Unlike Any Other
• This is the one to avoid
• Underrated
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• This just pisses me off.
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• UNAPPRECIATED MASTERPIECE
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