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Binding: Audio CD EAN: 5099747249822 Format: Explicit Lyrics Label: Columbia Manufacturer: Columbia Number Of Discs: 1 Publisher: Columbia Release Date: October 27, 1997 Studio: Columbia Sales Rank: 985
Amazon.co.uk Review: Leonard Cohen's deeply personal first LPs came out at a time when many of his peers were issuing furious, counterculture-inspired rants; he clearly had little interest in sticking with the pack at the time. So it makes a certain kind of contrary sense that Cohen would put out an offbeat, topical collection two-and-a-half decades later. The Future is an odd duck of an album; it's also brave, funny, and fascinating. "Give me back the Berlin Wall/ Give me Stalin and St. Paul", Cohen petitions sardonically in the title track, adding, "I've seen the future, brother: it is murder". "Can't run no more with the lawless crowd/ While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud", he intones in "Anthem"; in "Democracy", he name- checks Tiananmen Square while surveying the United States ("The cradle of the best and of the worst"). Cohen has only improved with age as a vocalist; here, he sounds like a cross between Mark Knopfler and Barry White. While the polished production takes some getting used to, it's somehow suitable that cooing background vocals and programmed tracks temper these low-boil diatribes. This is, after all, The Future. --Steven Stolder
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - POWERFUL ALBUM, ESSENTIAL!!!
At least Oliver Stone has a good taste in music, when he took 3 songs from this album to make his pseudo satire NATURAL BORN KILLERS.
THE FUTURE is yet another great album by Leonard Cohen with several great tracks which are very meaningful, especially THE FUTURE, ANTHEM, DEMOCRACY and WAITING FOR THE MIRACLE. Anyone who enjoys sophisticated lyrics cannot go wrong here.
Rating: - Masterpiece
Tracks on this 1992 album range from the soulful cover of Frederick Knight's Be For Real, to the flowing, country-tinged Closing Time and the sombre Anthem with its comforting lines: "There is a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in."
Democracy is another tour de force with a lovely undulating rhythm and gripping lyrics whilst Light As The Breeze must rate as one of his most moving love songs. As Cohen's sole album of new material in the 1990's, this was a worthy follow-up ... Read More
Rating: - HELL TO PAY WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS
How do you top an album like I'M YOUR MAN? How on earth do you possibly begin to think in terms of eclipsing your very own modern masterpiece? When you're an artist of the calibre of Cohen (or Dylan, following BLOOD ON THE TRACKS with DESIRE), you simply have to think a little bigger. Yes! it's that easy...
THE FUTURE, really, is Cohen's Unfinished Symphony. It was during the making of it that his son was invoved in a serious motorbike crash, and recording had to be abandonded. It was ... Read More
Rating: - Everybody knows the The Futures Closing time
i'm only 14 and i stumbled on leonard cohen about a year ago and i was totally drawn in by it i surprised myself because the typical sort of teenager would be totally ignorant to this sort of music but it's amazing and hypnotic espesially 'Everybody Knows' and the 'The Future'(which are my favourite on the album)
Anyway what most atracts me about this music is his gravely manly voice and lyrics which are never but in the backround and overshadowed by guitar riffs.Cohen uses a lot of synthesizers ... Read More
Rating: - More of a problem with the production
My problem with this album is the over production, but if you like that like some of these reviewers, and consider it smooth, then don't worry because even though I am put off by the production, it's still pretty good and some of the songs are great.
My problem is that I hate this sound and it just makes me so dissapointed that someone who I consider to have an edge should be made to sound like this. For example the instrumental is beautiful but sounds cheezy, and it's hard to take any of the lyrics ... Read More
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