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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 I missed this one when it was new: wish I had missed it again... Jan 20, 2010
Record label/artist problem: It's 1977, and Columbia's Leonard Cohen is ten years worth of famous in folk circles for singing his own lyrics, mostly with a minimum of adornment. The songs are poetic, novelistic, sometimes strange but compelling. His voice, imperfect for sure, is however quite believable. Even his songs which are obviously pure fiction sound like autobiography...not altogether a bad thing in a singer/songwriter. The perceived trouble is: How to expand his audience, and offer something fresh to the public in his next LP?
Solution arrived at: Get hot rock/R&B producer and arranger Phil Spector to bring his "Wall of Sound" style to Cohen songs.
Result: Total failure. The profuse instruments and background vocals overwhelm Leonard's distinctive voice and verse, making him a "background" on most of his own record.
Having been a Cohen fan since before his first release, I have heard a lot of his subsequent albums, but not all. I have loved some of his releases, but not all. Of those I have owned or heard over the decades, this one is the least satisfying. Even if one of the songs is pretty good, the production ruins the performance for me. I found this in a "bargain bin" (new) for four bucks recently, but it was no bargain.
Question: If one becomes famous as a songwriter/singer, does it not stand to reason that one's fans like the person's voice and lyrics, and want to hear both well on any record? And also that to win new fans, hurting the two things existing fans buy your products to experience is not a smart move?
Finally: Now, 33 years later, the world knows that Mr. Spector, in spite of having made a lot of cash for himself and various artists and labels in the '70's, is one really evil guy. How ironic that his collaboration with Leonard was titled (after one of the songs) "Death of a Ladies' Man" when Phil now is in prison for causing the death of a lady. And more irony: One of the songs is titled "Don't Leave With Your Hard On" when Mr. Spector apparently pulled the trigger on a woman who refused to STAY when HE had a hard-on. It makes one wonder if Phil ever got over making this record. Meanwhile, Leonard, even around the age of 70, is singing his heart out in concerts and selling records, but avoiding doing any of the songs on this turkey. Of course, he could not recreate the "wall of sound" on the concert stage even if he wanted to...but I trust he is smart enough to know that the lyrics he issued behind Phil's production really were not good enough to be resurrected with even the simple accompaniment that best suits his strongest work. Skip this one, at any price.
 Often Maligned -- Yet One of My Favorite Cohen Albums Sep 01, 2009
I agree with the reviewers that say Leonard Cohen's "Death of a Ladies' Man" would not be a good place to start when attempting to find out what the man and his words and music are all about. If you want a starting point, choose The Best of Leonard Cohen or Essential Leonard Cohen. This album strays too far from the sparse acoustic accompaniment most, up to this point in time (1977), people had come to expect from Cohen. Instead of a man, his guitar, and minimal auxiliary musicians, we get Leonard Cohen backed by Producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound: Dense, layered, lush instrumentation and orchestral flourishes, with a chorus of voices (ooohs and aaahs). After listening to Cohen's pre-1977 work, this can be tantamount to shifting gears without pushing in the clutch.
To my ears, Cohen was never an exceptional vocal talent. He is, however, an exceptional lyricist with the ability to pen dark, emotive poetry set to music. Part of the appeal to me was his frequent bare-bones instrumentation and production, lending a "lonely sound" to supplement his words. Interestingly enough, I've read that Spector left some of the songs with Cohen's "guiding vocals," which were meant be redone or overdubbed later in the production.
"Death of a Ladies' Man" takes that previous approach and throws it out the window. Spector's heavy production and instrumentation adds almost a "happy" sound that contrasts with what many consider some of his best lyrical compositions.
For instance, on "True Love Leaves no Traces," we get these beautiful, yet gloomy, lyrics set to a slow, tropical samba sound, replete with flourishing flutes, saxophones, and chimes. (And yet, oddly, to me it works):
As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will
Through windows in the dark
The children come, the children go
Like arrows with no targets
Like shackles made of snow
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun
On this album you get a variety of sounds and styles that would seem more appropriate on a 70's Harry Nilsson (whose music I love) or Ringo Starr album than a Leonard Cohen album. It makes me wonder if Cohen took the approach Paul McCartney did with the Let It Be... Naked album and stripped Spector's production, would what's left be workable?
I'm not sure, as the backing is so lush, and so much a part of this album. I've also heard that during when finishing the production for this album, Spector barred Cohen from the studio, blocking the entrance with armed guards. Nice... This difficult recording experience may well be why Cohen does not include any of these songs on his collections or plays them live.
Yet as I've stated before, it's one of those oddities I still like to listen to. No, it's no Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room, or Songs of Love and Hate, but if you give "Death of a Ladies' Man" another spin, you might find yourself actually enjoying some of these sadly orphaned tracks.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 WAGNERIAN AND TACKY Feb 14, 2009
There's something horribly sordid and alluring about this album -- my first ever Cohen and by far his most uncharacteristically bewitching. And It's not even the ever-dubious nietzschean Spector touch which seeks to apply The Wall Of Sound to whatever it hears. In fact, The Wall itself is so oddly built up that it ends up defeating the high and mighty aplomb it is known for.
The huge arrangements, the choruses, the rising and swirling cadences with all their monumental aspirations are there, but they sound bizarrely dwarfed. The mystery, I think, is in the mix. The whole wagnerian army is meshed together as one beast, with little sound separation. But then it's pushed all the way to the back. So Cohen sings (and hollers) above an otherwise lush and nearly indistinguishable sea of tinny sounds that strives to lurch forward into the foreground but can't. The effect is unique. Spector's massive backup comes across as thin and distant, echoing all over the place, while Cohen seems wholly out of sorts, forced to sing in ways he never imagined. And he does so with desperate grace. Then there's the rickety chorus of females coming in and out, like they're popping their heads into the room intermittently, warbling their lines in sensuous white trash tones.
Think of an ample and disreputable saloon with the a full string section and keyboards playing on the ancient jukebox at the FAR end of the lounge. Then, before the music reaches you, some twisted cowboy sitting midway decides to add his singing, backed up occasionally by the skanky barroom girls. By the time this mix has finished bouncing through the room and hits YOU, the effect is both pathetic and glorious, threadbare and deeply moving, comical and metaphysical; it's both muzak and great music.
It's downright tacky...but oh so beautiful.
The cover says it all: Decadent white 'customer' of a cheap 'gentleman's club' in a dark corner of the world flanked by two anonymous, overly-perfumed, and terribly young 'ladies of the night'. The music in such a setting would be the music you hear on this album. (I should've just said that at the start!)
How they did it, I dunno.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
The only Cohen album I really enjoy Oct 23, 2007
I've listened to most Leonard Cohen albums. He always has some great lyrics but apart from a few songs, the music has always sounded a little bland. This album is the one exception. The reason is that it is produced and co-composed by Phil Spector, one of the true geniuses of rock music. Spector's style has always been grandiose and angry, yet beautiful. That kind of style suits perfectly with Cohen's lyrics. Some have called those lyrics misogynist or misanthropic. Maybe but that doesn't make them any worse. The greatest song on the album is the epic title track. Paper Thin Hotel and I Left a Woman Waiting are some of my other favorites. The C&W style of Fingerprints may be a little too much for some but I like even that one. 1977 was a very good year in rock music and this is one of the best albums made that year.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
This deserves a "0" not even a "1" or how about a "Y" for YUCK Sep 10, 2007
A huge Leonard Cohen Fan I am..what moved me to purchase this CD? I don't know. I think it was the Red Wine I drank before arriving to Amoeba Records!!! Wine Goggles?
I only wish I had read these reviews first. This is a giant piece of poop! I should have guessed it when I saw who produced it. (I won't even mention the turds name, as he allegedly murdered his X Girlfriend)
But back to this work of do-do.
Skip it.
I still luv my Leonard tho. "swoon"
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