T o m W a i t s
SWORDFISHTROMBONES
(1983)
(http://www.musicmatic.de/W/WaitsTo1a.jpg) (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=32MPX5A9)
When "Swordfishtrombones" came out in 1983, it was quite a challenge for people to get into. Tom Waits had radically broken with the traditions of his own music. Desisting from the piano-heavy soundscapes of his seventiesī records, he created odd compositions that seemed to border the insane and featured instruments such as brake drums or glass harmonicas. The arrangements, ranging from harmonic melodies to dissonant weirdness, were the blueprint to Waitsī later efforts, impressively individualistic and fascinatingly unique. Waitsī had made a giant leap away from the bar-piano poetry of his earlier records, presenting an LP that was hard to stomach for listeners, but marked a turning point in his career and was possibly the pinnacle of his creative work.
The lyrics, as much as they kept portraying the same circumstances and drawing the same picture Waits had been famous for before, were taken to another level, too. The depictions of life on the wrong side of the tracks reached from loopy scenarios on tracks like "Underground" or "Frankīs Wild Years" and the raw storytelling of "16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six" to the pure sarcasm of the ironically bombastic "In The Neighborhood" that sounds like a jingoistic anthem gone wrong.
What makes this self-re-invention of one of the most innovate American artists of the eighties even more intriguing, is the peculiar way Waits delivers his weird poetry: His vocals resemble the sound of a rogue dog barking in the streets, and while never erupting into aggressive bawling, the slightly menacing tone of the singerīs voice makes the album seem even more unadulturated and rough. "Swordfishtrombones" is hard to get used to, but once you have, you will probably feel it is impossible to replace. It is "The Three Cent Opera sung by Howlinī Wolf", said one critic. You get the picture.