Tag Archives: noel mengel

Paul Kelly

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[photo: Courtesy Paul Kelly website]
  From very early on in his career, Paul Kelly has been recognised as one of the most significant singer/songwriters in the country.

His influence over Australian music and Australian culture is wide and significant – backed up by the fact his new compilation Songs From The South – Volume 2 has gone Gold since its November 2008 release.

As well as issuing an enduring body of work with his own bands, Kelly has written film scores (Lantana and the Cannes 2006 highlight, Jindabyne), and produced albums for and written songs with some of Australia and New Zealand’s finest artists.

Paul Kelly’s Songs From The South Volume 2 was recently released, along with a DVD collection of Paul Kelly videos from 1985 to 2008 and a double CD including Songs From The South Volume’s 1 & 2. You can find these at record stores and digital outlets now.

Since it’s release the positive reviews have been coming through thick and fast.
One such review can be read below, from Noel Mengel of The Courier Mail. More reviews are posted in the ‘Recent Press’ section on Paul Kelly‘s website.


Review:
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Leonard Cohen

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For four decades, Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time, a figure whose body of work achieves greater depths of mystery and meaning as time goes on. His songs have set a virtually unmatched standard in their seriousness and range. Sex, spirituality, religion, power – he has relentlessly examined the largest issues in human lives, always with a full appreciation of how elusive answers can be to the vexing questions he raises. But those questions, and the journey he has traveled in seeking to address them, are the ever-shifting substance of his work, as well as the reasons why his songs never lose their overwhelming emotional force.

His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), announced him as an undeniable major talent. It includes such songs as “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “So Long, Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Good,” all now longstanding classics. If Cohen had never recorded another album, his daunting reputation would have been assured by this one alone.

However, the two extraordinary albums that followed, Songs From a Room (1969), which includes his classic song, “Bird on the Wire,” and Songs of Love and Hate (1971), provided whatever proof anyone may have required that that the greatness of his debut was not a fluke. (All three albums are reissued in April, 2007.)



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