Thanks for the Dance
| Leonard Cohen
Thanks for the Dance
Thanks for the Dance is the fifteenth and final studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released through Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings on November 22, 2019. It is the first release following Cohen's death in November 2016, and features contributions with musicians including Daniel Lanois, Beck, Jennifer Warnes, Damien Rice and Leslie Feist. The song "The Goal" was released with the announcement of the album, on September 20, 2019. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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RollingStone
Recordings from his final sessions find completion through his son, Adam, and fellow travelers, including Beck and Feist.
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The Atlantic
Thanks for the Dance, the singer’s posthumously released album, honors his legacy as a mystic and as a man.
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SPIN
Finds New Life After Death.
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Pitchfork
If Thanks For The Dance can’t one-up … Darker’s grand farewell, moments like that at least make it a worthwhile addition to his legacy.
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Variety
this is a lovely, worthy postscript.
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The Guardian
This posthumous album finds the poet and singer on reflective, insightful, deadpan form, ‘settling accounts of the soul’.
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Record Collector
Always rueful, always reflective, always admiring the particles of dust suspended in the last shaft of light as the coffin lid closes – the charm of Thanks For The Dance can be found in the tidemark between the lapping waves of Cohen’s poetic self-effacement and the shoreline of our appreciation for his lyrical accomplishments.
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The Line of Best Fit
This is a thrilling conclusion to an incredible, peerless career, and it just so happens to be one of the greatest posthumous albums of all time.
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The Telegraph
Leonard Cohen is back with a posthumous album as great as any from the late period of his considerable canon. And that is very great indeed.
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The Quietus
A transcendental eloquence comes out in this unique artefact. What we have is a series of sketches, providing a fitting closing statement to his legacy as a series of ideas strewn together, much like his life beginning as a poet. ... Thanks For The Dance stands out as an emblem of the artist’s life work. Dancing between satire, melancholy and tenderness, his final words stand out as the mark of a worldview drawn from a life lived in the shadow of his own genius.
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CoS
Each of the nine songs and poems that comprise Thanks for the Dance is a self-contained, coherent piece of art that perfectly fits in the Cohen canon, making it a worthwhile listening experience and a poignant farewell from one of music’s greatest and most eloquent writers.
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NOW
Cohen’s voice is at the centre of all the songs – present and passionate, the unmistakable deep rasp even better matching his searching weariness the older he got. And it’s all here, that never-duplicated mix of sex and death, the sacred and the profane.
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CLASH
A real treasure that unites unfinished recordings with a stellar array of guests...
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ALL MUSIC
Thanks for the Dance might not seem to be a major statement at first glance, but it's a missive that carries startling power, and it's clearly not built from scraps and leftovers, but assembled with a love that's equal to the knowledge Cohen put into it. This adds more documentation to the wholly unexpected and satisfying final act of a truly great songwriter, and it deserves your attention.
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musicOMH
It’s a beautiful, fitting send off to one of music’s finest lyricists and an excellent postscript to an incredible career.
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paste
Posthumous albums tend to sound cobbled together, compromised, missing that vital spark, but this loving father-son dialogue has produced a worthy epilogue to one of music's greatest songbooks.
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exclaim!
Thanks for the Dance is a fitting goodbye to a figure who, whether they've been in your life for one day, one year or a lifetime, made a tremendous impact on their craft. A beautiful reprise to a song of love or hate. The pleasure was all ours, Leonard.
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INDEPENDENT
Although the fear was that Adam would be spreading his father’s legacy too thin, each track has the weight of a completed thought, not a sketch bulked out.
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NME
Thankfully this album doesn’t fall into the trap of posthumous records that feel like they’re shamelessly re-animating a corpse and therefore should have been left on the cutting room floor. Instead, this collection of tender songs finds Cohen at his most calm and reflective.
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American Songwriter
There is really not much to separate this from the late-period, post-millennial albums that Cohen started churning out to ease financial issues, and those records maintained an imposingly high standard.
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No Ripcord
It’s still hard to truly get Leonard Cohen right, and Thanks for the Dance sadly sounds like an easy approximation of his sound.
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Chicago Tribune
Overall, though, the songs don’t measure up. ... And it’s clear why. The master songwriter simply ran out of time.
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Northern Transmissions
The record, while sparse and subtle, still manages to leap out of the speakers and create that special atmosphere that Cohen has always inhabited.
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Stereoboard
Although a sombre tone characterises 'Thanks For The Dance', Leonard's soft sense of humour and commitment to realism remain entirely intact. In death as in life, the unquantifiable brilliance of his restorative atmospheres and moods prevail. As a forlorn so long to a beautiful musician, this is exquisite.
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AP News
“Thanks for the Dance” is like discovering a box of old letters — or in this case, poems — from a departed loved one. It’s an emotional experience that allows Cohen’s great talents to be appreciated again.
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wmsc
To summarize, the album serves as an effective ode to the legacy that Leonard Cohen left behind. It may be argued that the album often overcompensates for the fact that it is meant to honor Cohen, however, the songs have established themselves as the closure that fans never knew they needed.
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The Young Folks
Cohen was lucky to be in a position of giving thanks at the end of his life, and he knew it. But we were equally lucky to receive it.
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The Highlander
Hearing Leonard Cohen sing and recite again reignited a splendor in my heart. Amazing musicians that pour their talents into making a faithful recreation of Cohen’s iconic sound and amazing lyricism make “Thanks for the Dance” a winner. Despite my initial reservations, I am beyond happy to have had this last dance with Leonard Cohen.
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Montreal Gazette
Sombre but impish, executed with love and attention to detail, Cohen's "new" collection is that rarity: an essential posthumous album.
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abc.NEWS
“Thanks for the Dance” is like discovering a box of old letters — or in this case, poems — from a departed loved one. It’s an emotional experience that allows Cohen’s great talents to be appreciated again.
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sputnik music
ultimately this album justifies its existence against Leonard Cohen's non-existence supremely well. It's well thought through, tightly performed, and provides a tasteful accompaniment to the nonpareil main event- an iconic voice providing closure to an iconic career.
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ES.
A Transfixing farewell.
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The Irish Times
striking postscript to a remarkable life.
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riff magazine
The album’s briefness echoes with a somber finality. These songs are concise and saturated with meaning—drifting, liturgical gems of Leonard Cohen’s meditative ingenuity. Cohen’s voice is gruffer and deeper than ever here. He sounds grizzled, yet serene in his brooding lyrical explorations.
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Secret Meeting
The creation of this record cannot have been easy for his son, but rather than being one of the throwaway posthumous collections we’ve become accustomed to, the result is one final half hour in the company of a beautiful mind. Though it underlines the void which now remains in his absence, we should also be thankful for this final – wonderful – dance.
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Legacy
stands as a beautiful hallmark of Leonard Cohen’s legacy.
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Americana Highways
Thanks for the Dance is a crowning achievement and loving tribute from son to father that showcases both Leonard Cohen’s songwriting strengths and Adam Cohen’s production abilities.
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NO DEPRESSION
Thanks for the Dance lacks the distinct melodies, atmospherics, and instrumental flourishes of Cohen’s best work, including You Want It Darker; its charm, however, is that it features Cohen at his most wistful and least ornamented. More representative of Cohen the poet than Cohen the singer-songwriter, Thanks for the Dance shows the artist coming full circle: he commenced his creative career with verse, he ends with it too.
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Daily Journal
“Thanks for the Dance,” on the other hand, seems to bring down the curtain on Cohen’s parallel universe, the poetry he started to publish long before he began making records.
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brooklyn vegan
Thanks for the Dance sounds like something Leonard must have already envisioned as a complete, cohesive album, and he just needed Adam to get the right people to help put the finishing touches on it.
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mxdwn.com
Given the fact that Cohen died before he was able to complete Thanks for the Dance, the songs feel, well, unfinished. Adam did a great job turning them into good songs, but one can’t help but wonder if Cohen meant to turn them into something far bigger. That doesn’t wind up mattering in the big picture, as the material is well written and well-produced, but it’s interesting to think about occasionally. The last words uttered on Cohen’s final release are, “don’t listen to me,” but unfortunately for him, the world already did, and loved it.
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The Herald Bulletin
“Thanks for the Dance” is like discovering a box of old letters — or in this case, poems — from a departed loved one. It’s an emotional experience that allows Cohen’s great talents to be appreciated again.
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Herald Publicist
He departed as he had arrived, singing the songs that only he could sing.
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Flood Magazine
For all of our expectations about what death must look like to a man such as this one, he’s still managed to surprise us.
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Bernard Zuel
It’s proof, again, that Cohen could find grace and beauty within, or alongside, any shade. Even – or maybe always - the shade of death.
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Jimmy Star's World
Leonard Cohen Does a Fitting Last Waltz on Thanks for the Dance.
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