YOU WANT IT DARKER, the acclaimed, heralded new album from Leonard Cohen, enters the Billboard 200’s Top 10, marking the legendary artist’s second-ever Top 10 debut on the chart in his decades-spanning career. Cohen’s 2012 studio album, Old Ideas, also debuted Top 10 on the chart.
Around the world, the YOU WANT IT DARKER tops the SoundScan Top 200 Album Chart in Cohen’s native Canada, while also awarding Cohen his first-ever #1 album in Sweden and Ireland. The album topped the charts in a total of 8 countries including Belgium, New Zealand and Norway, while also peaking at #1 on iTunes in more than 30 countries. The album, which in its first week has been certified Gold in 3 countries, peaked Top 5 on Amazon’s Best Seller chart in 7 countries and reached Top 10 on iTunes in 50 countries. The lead single “You Want It Darker” entered the weekly Spotify viral 50 chart in 30 countries and had feature radio play globally including BBC, CBC, Classic 21, France Inter Radio, KCRW, NPR and Radio 1 (Belgium), among others.
The praise for Cohen is palpable, as he’s been celebrated and embraced around the world with continued 5-star reviews and accolades. As he approaches the 50th anniversary of his debut albumSongs of Leonard Cohen next year, he continues to wow audiences with his most prolific album yet.
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“Album of the Month - 9/10… the third and strongest of a very-late-career run of masterworks… Exquisitely crafted… What's remarkable about You Want It Darker is how it melds that earlier aesthetic with the time-tempered outlook of the man he is in his ninth decade… It's become a cliche to treat every latter day Cohen album like a potential swansong but it's hard to image a richer, finer or more satisfying finale than this…” - Uncut
“9.5/10…These new lyrics are pared down and polished, shaved and selected for their truth as much as their beauty,” Paste Magazine
"You Want It Darker gravely and beautifully accepts God and mortality... a riveting experience...” – The Atlantic
"5 /5... its graceful blend of soul, doo-wop and European folk traditions resists defeat, as does a deep lyrical preoccupation with the theme of love..."- The Financial Times
"A -… On his 14th studio album, the songwriting maestro—still vital at 82—is a lion in winter, his lyrics heavy with God and sex and death and his legendary voice scraped down to a subterranean rumble. Nearly every one of the nine songs here catalogs some kind of loss... The production, by his son Adam, is lush but lean..." – Entertainment Weekly
"You Want It Darker is simply one...home truth after another... His voice is deeper and more ominous than ever, the minimal musical settings are perfect, and every song tackles one of the big themes... The only thing stopping me from claiming that this is his best album since 1984’s Various Positions is the growing suspicion that it might be his best since his 1967 debut," - Sunday Times (UK)
"Rating 10... The return of Leonard Cohen with You Want It Darker...is an absolute triumph. At 82 the Canadian poet gives us one of his best records ever..." - TomTomRock (Italy)
"5/5… Musically, he teamed up with his son Adam Cohen as producer, and they have been together a strong and dense album... It is the strong texts which are in the center of You Want It Darker, and they are supported by a sublime melodic undercurrent of recognizable Cohen compositions..." - Gaffa (Denmark)
"5/5... These eight and a half songs (the ninth is a reprise...are most often simply structured and direct. This is an album of killer couplets, even the bleakest delivered with a half-smile... We did want it darker, it’s true, and Cohen has obliged..."- UK Observer
"5/5 - Profound ruminations on mortality... Leonard Cohen could order a breakfast burrito and his particular choice of words would impart more truth and profundity than most songwriters manage in their entire careers... “If I Didn’t Have Your Love” will become a lovers’ standard..." – The Evening Standard (UK)
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