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Joseph Mount recommended I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen in Music (curated)

 
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
1988 | Pop
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Hearing this Leonard Cohen stuff, after listening to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers it was like ‘this sounds like bullshit!’, I didn’t understand the layers of intellect that had gone into making that record, and the large element of humour. My dad is into Leonard Cohen, I remember hearing the older stuff, then my sister was getting into it because she was becoming very literary. I was basically absorbing Leonard Cohen but I wasn’t crazy about it. I remember hearing ‘The Story Of Isaac’ as a child and thinking ‘god, this is fully intense, it’s so bare’. I remember hearing I’m Your Man it and at first finding it a really odd, unenjoyable experience, but now I realise that it’s a very curious idea, this industrial Leonard Cohen record, it’s really cool! ‘First We Take Manhattan’, imagine being a musician and being able to put a song like that out."

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40x40

Frank Black recommended Happy Soup by Baxter Dury in Music (curated)

 
Happy Soup by Baxter Dury
Happy Soup by Baxter Dury
2011 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I was reading about Ian Dury a few years ago. I'd heard his music before and I must confess, I wasn't that impressed. I found him to be a captivating figure, but the music was just too 1979 funky pub-rock. I didn't relate to it. But I wanted to read about him and then I discovered he had a son named Baxter who's a musician. Since then, I've probably listened to Happy Soup more than any record in the past few years – maybe a thousand times. I've had requests from my wife to please put on a different fucking record. All my five kids know the whole thing by heart because I got obsessed with it. It's starting to get a bit insanity-inducing. I still listen to music like a little kid: I discover something, I like it, and that's all I listen to for a while."

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    Juice WRLD

    Juice WRLD

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    This is Juice WRLD's official channel. Chicago-area hip-hop musician Juice WRLD delivers...

Tennessee Woman by Charlie Musselwhite
Tennessee Woman by Charlie Musselwhite
1969 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"For the rest of these songs we’re closer to now. My Father-in-law introduced me to this, he’s not a musician by trade but he grew up in the hippy era and was really into blues. He has all of these reference points, music that went totally over the head of my generation. The reference points from that period for my generation are a totally different set of people, Jimi Hendrix or music that even my Father-in-law didn’t know at the time, like the Jim Sullivan record that people are digging out as an undiscovered gem. “I would never have discovered Charlie Musselwhite but for my Father-in-law. He was excited that I was a musician and we could hang out and talk about records, sometimes it doesn’t work and his taste will veer in directions that I totally can’t get into, but he’s introduced me to some great music that I love, like Professor Longhair records. ""I heard this in 2009, after Veckatimest and it was really striking because it’s so straight-up and straightforward. It’s the most minimal 6/8 blues tune and it’s very simple, the drums, organ and guitar line don’t change, the harmonica does the melody and a simple solo and that’s it. There’s these beautiful little contained elements, all the sounds are super lush and it’s another kind of subtlety, the attention to tone is so specific. It’s really elegant and hip, but in a totally different realm, a blues perspective from a totally different era, it’s like what Beach House would have been if they were a blues band in 1962. “It’s not trying to do anything revolutionary, it’s just exactly what it is, great playing without trying to be great playing. It’s so personal and visceral and sometimes you really need that sort of music. It’s the simplicity and soulfulness, it’s so minimal and especially going into Shields we started talking about that more and more, having that sense of space"

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Discordant Cultivation
Discordant Cultivation
Gale Ian Tate | 2025 | Contemporary, Horror, LGBTQ+
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
DISCORDANT CULTIVATION is a DARK standalone novel about a music producer who sees the potential in a street busker. He kidnaps him and uses 'dubious' methods to teach him how to get the best out of his music.

Vale is the producer, and Kieran is the musician. You read the story from both perspectives, seeing Kieran succumb to Stockholm Syndrome in real time, along with everything else. There isn't a massive supporting cast, but each one plays a part in Vale and Kieran's story.

Now, it says it is "A Dark MM Captive Musician Romance", but I don't know if I would put the word romance anywhere near this. I mean, yes, they fall into something, a dark and twisted version of love, maybe, but romance? Maybe psychological horror fits better? Don't get me wrong, I love a dark romance, but I struggled with this book. It took me over three days to read it, when I can normally finish a book (or more) in a day.

I will say, read the trigger warnings! You will need to, to protect your own mental health. This book pushed boundaries I didn't even know I had. It was an extremely uncomfortable book to read, BUT it was so incredibly well-written!!! Gale Ian Tate has a knack for dark stories, but I think this one might be both the best and the worst! And while I both loved and loathed it, it definitely won't be one I read again!

An amazing, horrible, uncomfortable story that pushed everything I thought I knew. If that sounds like the book for you, then I can definitely recommend it. Just be careful with your own mental health, though!

** Same worded review will appear elsewhere. **

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book; the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jan 2, 2026