New Skin For The Old Ceremony (studio album)
by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen bestography

New Skin For The Old Ceremony is ranked 7th best out of 27 albums by Leonard Cohen on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Leonard Cohen is Songs Of Leonard Cohen which is ranked number 144 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 9,740.

Leonard Cohen album bestography « Higher ranked (2,339th)
The Future
This album (2,709th)
New Skin For The Old Ceremony
Lower ranked (2,758th) »
Various Positions

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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New Skin For The Old Ceremony track list

  Track ratingsTrack ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 82 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

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Rating: 86 (60 votes)Comments: View 1
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Rating: 82 (37 votes)Comments: View 0
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Rating: 79 (33 votes)Comments: View 0
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Rating: 82 (35 votes)Comments: View 1
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Rating: 82 (36 votes)Comments: View 0
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Rating: 85 (48 votes)Comments: View 0
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Rating: 81 (36 votes)Comments: View 0
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Track pick Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.

New Skin For The Old Ceremony rankings

New Skin For The Old Ceremony collection

New Skin For The Old Ceremony ratings

Average Rating: 
79/100 (from 194 votes)
  Ratings distributionRatings distribution Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 194 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
80/100
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10/13/2025 11:30 Tamthebam  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 22,83269/100
 
90/100
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09/15/2025 19:43 LedZep  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 4,80579/100
 
90/100
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08/25/2025 15:50 WilliamFrayer  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 1,03380/100
 
85/100
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07/31/2025 14:22 AAL2014  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 3,45475/100
 
80/100
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06/18/2025 19:20 idiotican  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 2,80374/100

Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 78.7/100, a mean average of 78.2/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 79.1/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.4.

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New Skin For The Old Ceremony comments

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Rating:  
90/100
From 03/04/2025 16:32
Insanely underrated album- wish he had cut Field Commander Cohen though
#307860 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 12/02/2016 16:21
Compared to the preceding three albums, this one is relatively patchy, it does have two or three songs that are up there with his very best in Chelsea Hotel #2, Who By Fire and Take This Longing, but overall as an album it is certainly not as consistent as Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Songs From A Room or Songs Of Love And Hate.
#179474 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
85/100
From 05/24/2016 16:09
An underrated album. New skin for the old ceremony, isn't quite in the same class as his first three albums but it's still a very good record. It features some fantastic songs such as opener, is this what you wanted, the excellent, Chelsea hotel, and, lover, lover, lover, and that's just the first three tracks. Elsewhere, there's other strong cuts in, there is a war, who by fire, and, field commander Cohen. An overlooked classic.
#166781 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 09/02/2012 20:32
Not as lyrically spectacular as some of his other records, but the orchestration is far more experimental and unconventional, and the record holds two of Cohen's greatest songs, Lover Lover Lover and Is This What You Wanted, especially the last of the two is spectacular built up, almost paused but then lived up again, with a Cohen off beat. Amazing.
#49851 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
70/100
From 08/01/2012 17:07
Not quite up to Cohen's usual ceiling of lyrical perfection, but close. This is an overlooked and understated album. Not brilliant, but still great.
#47581 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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