Discography
The Four Volumes
Lionel Cohen presents
Four volumes of intimate folk covers — stripped bare, beautifully reimagined
From Guns N' Roses to Bob Dylan, Rihanna to the Rolling Stones — Lionel Cohen found the folk soul hiding inside some of history's most beloved songs.
The Artist
Lionel Cohen is a prolific, award-winning Los Angeles–based composer who has been making music for more than three decades. Born in Marseille to a Moroccan father and French mother, he cut his teeth in the heavy metal and punk scenes of 1990s Montreal before migrating to New York City, then eventually settling in Los Angeles, where he has been based since 2013.
Under the banner of The Cohen Brothers — his cherished acoustic folk project — Lionel turns his gaze toward the songs he grew up loving: arena rock anthems, synth-pop gems, classic soul, and singer-songwriter confessionals. Stripped of their electric production, each cover is rebuilt from the ground up with acoustic guitars, mandolins, assorted acoustic stringed instruments, warm vocal intimacy, and the unhurried pace of a fireside performance.
The project began in 2007 with Extracts from the Acoustic Sessions, a ten-track collection that reimagined songs by Guns N' Roses, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Rihanna, and David Bowie. The warmth of the response led to three further volumes, culminating in the 2022 Music of the Vietnam War collection — an entire album devoted to the protest anthems and soundtrack songs of the Vietnam era, from Creedence Clearwater Revival to the Rolling Stones.
Outside The Cohen Brothers, Lionel has commercially released over 300 albums, earned over 500 IMDb credits, and scored films for Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Saban Films, and Gravitas Ventures. His music has appeared in American Idol, House, and Breaking Amish, and he has been commissioned by This American Life and Vanity Fair. He is also the mastermind behind the Musikopedie project — a collection of 1,000 genre-spanning tracks that have been licensed hundreds of times worldwide.
Discography
"Prolific Los Angeles-based New Yorker Lionel Cohen has been insatiably producing music for over thirty years."— SoundCloud Artist Bio
Song by Song
Lionel's most thematically cohesive collection, gathering the protest anthems, psychedelic rock, and soul standards that defined the era of the Vietnam War — all reimagined through the quiet lens of an acoustic guitar.
For What It's Worth
Buffalo Springfield's 1967 protest landmark, written by Stephen Stills about the Sunset Strip curfew riots, gains an eerie, dusty intimacy in Cohen's hands.
Fortunate Son
CCR's defining anti-draft anthem from 1969 — Fogerty's class-war fury translated into something raw and plaintive on acoustic strings.
Paint It Black
The Rolling Stones' 1966 dark psychedelic classic — its famed sitar melody reimagined as a brooding acoustic meditation on grief and darkness.
Where Did Our Love Go
The Supremes' 1964 Motown smash — written by Holland-Dozier-Holland — stripped of its fizzing pop gloss, leaving something tender and searching behind.
Have You Ever Seen the Rain
One of CCR's most enduring tracks, its elegiac mood — written about the end of the band itself — translates naturally to solo acoustic.
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Bob Dylan wrote this for the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Its quiet resignation has never felt more intimate than in Cohen's sparse folk reading.
I Think We're Alone Now
Ritchie Cordell's 1967 teen-pop song gets a wistful, almost melancholy acoustic makeover — the teenage secrecy of the original now sounds like nostalgia.
Sympathy for the Devil
The longest track on the album at five minutes — the Rolling Stones' infamous 1968 samba-rock epic recast as a slow, hypnotic acoustic confessional.
California Dreamin'
The Mamas & the Papas' 1965 folk-pop standard about longing for warmth feels perfectly at home in this acoustic setting — dreamy, sun-bleached, and nostalgic.
Nowhere to Run
Martha and the Vandellas' 1965 Motown classic, driven by Holland-Dozier-Holland's relentless urgency, is transformed into a quiet, cornered lament.
Who'll Stop the Rain
CCR's 1970 closer — a song about idealism worn thin by years of war and protest — brings the album full circle with quiet, aching resignation.
Ranging across '80s synth-pop, power ballads, and classic rock, Volume III sees Cohen drawing from a wider palette — from Berlin's Top Gun theme to Leonard Cohen's reverent hymn, never straying far from an intimate, late-night feel.
Take My Breath Away
Berlin's 1986 Top Gun love theme — all soaring synths in the original — becomes a hushed, moonlit acoustic ballad.
Wrecking Ball
Miley Cyrus's 2013 emotional tour de force, produced by Dr. Luke, is reborn as a stripped folk lament — its raw hurt even more exposed.
If It Be Your Will
Leonard Cohen's achingly beautiful 1984 hymn — one of the most quietly devastating songs ever written — treated with deep reverence here.
Look Back in Anger
David Bowie's 1979 new-wave deep cut, brooding and restless, reimagined as introspective acoustic rock.
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Bret Michaels of Poison wrote this acoustic ballad in a laundromat. Cohen's version returns it to its campfire roots, warm, personal, and unadorned.
Grease
Frankie Valli's shimmering 1978 title song from the blockbuster musical, reimagined as a gentle acoustic reverie.
Curious About the Ways
An original Cohen composition — the only one on this volume — reflecting the folk-songwriting instincts that sit behind all his cover choices.
Bette Davis Eyes
Kim Carnes' 1981 synth-pop classic, originally written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, given a sultry acoustic reinterpretation.
Highway Knees
A second original track — Cohen the songwriter at his most introspective, slotting naturally alongside the covers.
Just for You
A tender, quietly expressed love song from Bang Tango, delivered in the intimate acoustic style that defines the Sessions series.
I Won't Back Down
Tom Petty's 1989 defiant anthem, one of rock's great stand-your-ground songs, becomes quietly resilient on acoustic guitar.
Never Tear Us Apart
INXS's 1987 ballad, written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence, closes the album with aching beauty — Hutchence's melody undimmed by the decades.
The second volume showed Cohen broadening his reach — from Lou Reed's downtown New York sleaze to the Ronettes' girl-group pop, each song's emotional core exposed by the acoustic treatment.
Perfect Day
Lou Reed's 1972 quietly devastating song — variously read as a love song or a paean to heroin — becomes even more unsettling and gorgeous in acoustic form.
Hungry Like the Wolf
Duran Duran's 1982 synth-pop hit — all pulsing electronics in the original — reimagined as a taut, prowling acoustic number.
Becoming Extinct
An original Cohen composition exploring themes of loss and disappearance in his signature understated folk style.
Be My Baby
The Ronettes' iconic 1963 Phil Spector Wall of Sound production reduced to its bare emotional core — the yearning survives every strip-down.
Superstar
The Carpenters' heartbreaking 1971 cover of the Leon Russell–Bonnie Bramlett song — already intimate — becomes even quieter and more forlorn.
Don't Leave Me… Waiting
An original ballad — Cohen's gift for melodic songwriting on full display in between the classic covers.
Time After Time
Cyndi Lauper's 1983 synth-pop ballad, one of the great pop songs of its era, translates effortlessly to acoustic folk.
Eye in the Sky
The Alan Parsons Project's 1982 prog-pop classic — its electronic sheen peeled back to reveal a melancholy acoustic heart.
Don't Ask Me Why
A classic Eurythmics track — stripped to a quiet philosophical acoustic confessional.
About the Great Big Bang
Cohen's most ambitious original on the album — a cosmic folk meditation that feels like it belongs on a lost 1970s singer-songwriter record.
Wild Side
Motley Crue's haunting song of eerie contradictions — a fitting bookend to the opening Perfect Day, and a testament to enduring folk roots.
Where it all began. Cohen's debut acoustic collection draws from the era-spanning playlist of a lifelong music obsessive — hard rock, soft rock, Britpop, and R&B all reborn under the open strings of an acoustic guitar.
November Rain
The longest track on the album at six and a half minutes — Guns N' Roses' epic 1991 power ballad rendered as an intimate acoustic suite. Cohen honors every melodic arc of the original.
Traces of Me
An original Cohen composition — soulful, reflective, and perfectly at home among the iconic covers it sits between.
Wasted Years
Iron Maiden's 1986 album opener — a surprising and inspired choice — its theme of restless wandering unexpectedly well-suited to fingerpicked folk.
Always, Eternally
Another original — quietly timeless in the tradition of classic acoustic love songs, Cohen at his most melodically unguarded.
Quicksand
David Bowie's 1971 song of existential crisis — from the Hunky Dory album — stripped to bare bones, its philosophical weight even more apparent.
Hysteria
Def Leppard's 1987 power ballad — part of their multi-platinum record of the same name — distilled into a wistful acoustic moment.
Focus on Forever
An original track anchoring the album's midsection — a contemplative folk song about presence and impermanence.
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd's 1975 tribute to Syd Barrett — already one of rock's great acoustic moments — played with the reverence it deserves.
Beyond Superman
An original ballad — understated and warm, a perfect breath before the album's unexpected closer.
Umbrella
Rihanna's 2007 global phenomenon — all Def Jam production gloss — transformed into something delicate, folk, and hauntingly tender. The perfect closer for a debut that proved any song can find a home on acoustic strings.