When you play the opening notes of dancefloor gloom storm “First We Take Manhattan” for someone who then asks what’s playing, and then you say Leonard Cohen, the response is usually a resounding “what???” Cohen’s 1988 I’m Your Man is an embrace of the cold and dark sounds of the 80s that most of his peers never even thought to approach at this level. The mood jumps from funereal to joyful constantly, sometimes within the same song. The flirtations with electronic cabaret in the title track, soulful state-of-the-union “Everybody Knows,” and even the frustratingly silly “Jazz Police” are a blast to listen to in context. It all culminates on top of a “Tower of Song,” a sensual ode to age and legacy built around chirping drum machines and a choral line like a ladder to heaven. 

– Alex Riggs