Leonard Cohen · 1988 · He traded the acoustic guitar for a synth and somehow got darker and funnier.

Jennifer Warnes · 1987 · A backup singer who knew Cohen's notebooks better than most of his producers steps in front of his band and makes you realise the songs were always perfect — you just hadn't heard them right.

Phoebe Bridgers · 2020 Spin it Again - She recorded this while touring in a van and somehow bottled the loneliness of every rest stop and motel room along the way.

Linda Perhacs · 1970 Spin it Again - She was a dental hygienist who sang to her patients and then made an album that sounds like it could only come from another planet.

Joni Mitchell · 1968 Spin it Again - David Crosby fought the label for hours to keep a single tambourine track off this record. He won.

Laura Nyro · 1968 Spin it Again - She wrote songs that other people had to sing because they couldn't believe she sang them herself.

Lana Del Rey · 2019 Spin it Again - She gave up on irony for forty minutes, and that vulnerability made every California cliché feel like a confession.

Lhasa de Sela · 2003 Spin it Again - She married the road and made an album this haunted.

Lhasa de Sela · 1997 Spin it Again - She grew up on a school bus without electricity, learned Spanish from her father, and made an album so intimate it sounds like a secret being passed in a dark room.

Gerry Rafferty · 1978 Spin it Again - Gerry Rafferty moved from Glasgow to London and turned the journey into an album so smooth it nearly drowns in its own warmth — until that sax solo rears up and reminds you why you're still listening.

John Martyn · Spin it Again - A timeless record from John Martyn that rewards close listening.

Susana Baca · 2011 Spin it Again - Susana Baca and a piano, recording the songs that survived the countries that tried to silence them.

Paul Simon · 1975 Spin it Again - Phil Ramone knew exactly when to step back — the producer engineered silence as expertly as he arranged strings.

Paul Simon · 1973 Spin it Again - A 1973 record from Paul Simon that rewards close listening.

Cassandra Wilson · 1996 Spin it Again - Craig Street produced an album of such restraint that every breath Wilson takes becomes essential—jazz that sounds less performed than confessed.

Patricia Barber · 2000 Spin it Again - A 2000 record from Patricia Barber that rewards close listening.

Patricia Barber · 1994 Spin it Again - Three nights at a Chicago bar, two microphones, and a pianist who understood that playing less is the harder choice.

Patricia Barber · 1998 Spin it Again - Patricia Barber and two musicians in a room, recorded live to tape in 1997—this is what happens when you remove everything between the player and the listener.

Abbey Lincoln · 1989 Spin it Again - A 1989 record from Abbey Lincoln that rewards close listening.

Ben Sidran · 1990 Spin it Again - Sidran recorded this with nothing but a piano, his voice, and the discipline not to add anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.