Comments:

The album is Cohen's longest studioalbum , and couple of the less interesting track could easily have been omitted. His covers of "Be for Real" and Irving Berlin's "Always" are not particularly interesting , and the closing instrumental number "Tacoma Trailer" doesn’t really add much to the album.

The rest of the album is, in turn, first-class material and the majority of these songs soon became live favorites . The songs "The Future”, " Waiting for the Miracle”, " Closing Time", "Anthem" and "Democracy" are still often found Cohen's live repertoire-lists.

These are also the five songs that make the album great . "The Future" is for Cohen an unusual up-beat number spiced with doomsday lyrics. "Waiting for the Miracle" is beautiful song written in collaboration with Sharon Robinson, who would later to play an even greater role in Cohen's musical development. A fine tune and excitingly arranged with funny little fragments of melody; for example, the funny whistle thing.

"Closing Time" won the Juno Award for Best Music Video in 1993. The song has a great chorus and is very catchy, not least because the great female voices that back up so perfectly . "Anthem" is a magnificent song with a whole choir them to back up on the chorus, and it is the song with the suggestive line "There is a crack in everything , that's how the light gets in". "Democracy" is a song that in a way continues the tone of ”I’m Your Man”’s "First We Take Manhanttan", the lyrics are extensive long open to many different interpretations, I’m sure.

The album's songs are relatively long; most from five to eight minutes, which explains the long playing-time – most of them bear their lenghts fine. There are female voices on most tracks, which has become a kind of hallmark for Cohen and as a whole is clearly "The Future" is one of his very best albums .