Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Leonard Cohen

Popular Problems

2014 · Columbia 88875014291 (C-113668) · Stereo · US · LP (with bonus CD) · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	88875014291 (C-113668)
Year	2014
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP (with bonus CD)
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Rock - Singer-Songwriter
Producer	Patrick Leonard
Musicians	Leonard Cohen (vocals), Patrick Leonard (keyboards, music), Anjani Thomas (co-writer, 'A Street'), Charlean Carmon (backing vocals), Donna Delory (backing vocals), Dana Glover (backing vocals), Joe Ayoub (bass), Brian Macleod (drums), James Harrah (guitar), Alexandru Bublitchi (violin)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  88875-01429-1-A  WELCOME TO 1979 CJH V○
Side B:  88875-01429-1-B  WELCOME TO 1979 CJH V○

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

2014 - US Columbia 88875014291/C-113668, stereo LP, pressed by United Record Pressing  <- this copy
2014 - Europe Columbia 88875014291, 180g stereo LP
2016 - Europe Columbia 88875014291, 180g repress
2022 - Europe Columbia 88875014291/88875014292, repress

This Pressing

2014 Columbia US stereo LP (barcode 888750142917) - the standard US first-run pressing, graded Near Mint with the original shrink and original inner sleeve present.

The Album

Popular Problems arrived in September 2014, days before Leonard Cohen turned eighty, and stands as the thirteenth studio album of a career that began with folk-tinged chamber songs in the late 1960s and had, by this point, deepened into a weathered, spoken-sung baritone meditation on age, love, faith and mortality. Co-written and produced with Patrick Leonard, the record leans into blues, gospel and soul inflections, trading the earlier synth-washed arrangements for warmer grooves built around Leonard's keyboards, a tight rhythm section and soulful backing vocals from Charlean Carmon, Donna Delory and Dana Glover. Songs like 'Almost Like the Blues' and 'Samson in New Orleans' confront violence, injustice and biblical imagery with Cohen's trademark mix of irony and gravity, while 'Nevermind' and 'Did I Ever Love You' circle themes of memory, war and devotion. The album marked the productive final stretch of Cohen's recording life, following 2012's Old Ideas and preceding 2016's You Want It Darker, a late-career run widely regarded as among the richest of his catalogue. It was greeted with strong critical acclaim on release, praised for its musical vitality and for Cohen's unflinching engagement with his own mortality, and it reinforced his status as one of popular music's most literate and enduring songwriters.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Slow
2. Almost Like the Blues
3. Samson in New Orleans
4. A Street
5. Did I Ever Love You

Side 2

1. My Oh My
2. Nevermind
3. Born in Chains
4. You Got Me Singing

The Label

Side 1 carries a cream ground with grey print and a grey silhouette photograph, a small Columbia 'eye' logo in a box left of centre at the bottom, and a 2014 Old Ideas, LLC / Columbia Records copyright block with the 33 1/3 RPM, STEREO and matrix text run up the left rim; side 2 is on a white ground with the same silhouette art and a small Columbia logo centred at the bottom. Both carry the ℗&© 2014 line, which fixes manufacture in 2014 or later and rules out any earlier date regardless of catalogue number or jacket print. This cream/white two-tone silhouette design with the boxed eye logo is the US vinyl pressing's label design, placing this copy as the standard US first-run stereo LP rather than any of the later European repress editions, which share the catalogue number on reissued stampers.

Fidelity

The vinyl was mastered and cut to lacquer by Cameron Henry at Welcome to 1979 from the same modern digital-era masters used across the album's CD and streaming editions, then pressed at United Record Pressing on 180-gram stock. Collectors regard this as a solid, unremarkable major-label contemporary pressing rather than an audiophile cut: quiet surfaces and a faithful, full-bodied transfer of the production, with no boutique or audiophile reissue of this title existing to outrank it. This US pressing and its European counterparts on the same catalogue number share the same mastering, so fidelity differences between them are negligible.

Notes

This is the 2014 US Columbia stereo LP, catalogue 88875014291/C-113668, pressed by United Record Pressing with lacquers cut at Welcome to 1979. The hand-etched runout reading 'Welcome to 1979 88875-01429-1-A/B' with a stamped 'U' inside a circle matches the mastering and pressing-plant identifiers for this release and confirms it as the standard US vinyl edition rather than any of the later European repress issues of the same catalogue number. The cream/white two-tone silhouette label design with the boxed Columbia eye logo and 2014 copyright line is consistent with this being the sole US vinyl version logged for the number. The jacket's original shrink and original inner sleeve are present, and the vinyl grades Near Mint.

Documenting collections

I do this work for other people’s collections too — documenting a collection record by record, researching individual pressings, and preparing collections for sale or for insurance. If you have a collection you would like documented, or a record you want identified properly, get in touch: email

This record’s page: https://vinylcurator.net/albums/leonard-cohen-popular-problems/