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The Future | 
| Artist: Leonard Cohen
Label: Columbia
Category: Music
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £4.97
You Save: £2.02 (29%)
New (46) Used (6) from £3.00
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 1117
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
EAN: 5099747249822
ASIN: B000025SIU
Release Date: October 27, 1997
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Future | | • | Waiting For The Miracle | | • | Be For Real | | • | Closing Time | | • | Anthem | | • | Democracy | | • | Light As The Breeze | | • | Always Has Always Will | | • | Tacoma Trailer |
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| Editorial Reviews:
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
POWERFUL ALBUM, ESSENTIAL!!! November 3, 2008
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.
Masterpiece March 5, 2008
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 to 1988's I'm Your Man and remains a masterpiece of poetry in song.
Democracy has been covered by Judy Collins on her album of the same name whilst on the tribute album Tower of Song, there is a sensitive rendition of Light As The Breeze by Billy Joel. The Future and Anthem are covered on the soundtrack tribute Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.
HELL TO PAY WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS August 11, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 then decided it should be released in its incomplete glory, with a couple of outtakes thrown in for good measure, and this is no bad thing. Any album containing songs of the calibre of DEMOCRACY, ANTHEM, WAITING FOR THE MIRACLE, CLOSING TIME, and LIGHT AS THE BREEZE, would find a place in any list of the greats. These are real BIG songs, for grown-ups, just as were the tracks on I'M YOUR MAN, such as TAKE THIS WALTZ, FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN and EVERYBODY KNOWS, containing lyrics with a rare and precise attention to detail you want to bow your head and kneel at the feet of Cohen's genius. As for the title track itself, it makes young pretenders like Nick Cave look posturing and almost laughable. I vaguely recall a review posted at the time of release with encapsulated what THE FUTURE was about, saying it was a flawed masterpiece, but "most albums don't aim this high." What's more, I absolutely treasure Cohen's reading of Irving Berlin's ALWAYS: its two short verses could just about sum up Cohen's whole philosophy, and as for the closer, the instrumental TACOMA TRAILER, it is a perfect piece of music and serves to remind that, with Leonard, it is not always just about the words, the man's a fabulous composer too....
Everybody knows the The Futures Closing time June 15, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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 and usually has female backsingers which both sound great, and complement his distictive voice.
This Album and and in fact all of Leonard Cohens music deserves a listening to because it so unique, and i'm sure you'll be hooked on it after one song.
 More of a problem with the production June 30, 2004
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
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 seriously when it sounds like Leonard Cohen wasn't interested in producing his music in a way that presents the lyrics as most important. I liked the acousic guitar of the past, but if you like the production of the later albums you will like this, because I like it too even with the sound. I just wish he'd do something really raw and simple, I thought he had more style than this.
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