Leonard Cohen’s Death Of A Ladies’ Man LP, his first and only collaborative effort with Phil Spector, was never really given its due as one of the best albums of the 70’s. Along with very few other albums (Big Star’s Third, Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom and maybe Berlin), it explored emotionally unpleasant territory and, in the long run, things we prefer not to think about— jealousy, spite, vengeance, brutality and death among them. Yet in each case, remarkably, Cohen’s and these other albums transcended possible emotional dead-ends and emerged jubilant and ultimately positive.