Nah Swordfish is def as good as this

Album Rating: 4.7

Can't wait to jam it!

Album Rating: 5.0

Wow what a bump

Album Rating: 4.7

Hell yeah Jr bro.

I've gotta be real: I utterly despise full-on blues-mode Tom Waits. I think maybe it was Blood Money that I heard last year, and I had to shut it off halfway through. I just can't get into most blues music. I'm not a fan of the gravelly over-emoting vocals.

I really love this album though. It's like a mixture of street jazz and weird carnival music and euro folk. It's still very bluesy, but it flips modes a lot, which keeps it fresh. Brian Eno's experimental sensibility prob helped push things further away from more traditional blues arrangements too, I'd imagine. Still feel that it peaks in the first track tho. Singapore is some weird cabaret sea shanty theatre music and I'm all about it. I wish he had more like that, but tbf I'm not super familiar with his albums outside of this, BM, and Closing Time, which is uh... decent? Not really indicative of his overall sound but the rudiments are there.

If you dig this, you’d dig Swordfishtrombones, same type of thing. I’m with you on preferring his kookier side

Noted. Added to my queue, may get around to it tn.

Album Rating: 4.5

Clap Hands is my fave on this. And I think Franks Wild Years is just as great as this or Swordfishtrombones. Sometimes I think that's his best record.

Clap Hands is one of his best for sure

“Salvation Army seem to wind up in the hole,
and they all went to heaven in a little rowboat”

Album Rating: 4.5

^ Swordfish is a blast. it’s less coherent than this, but all the more fun for it. for my money, this is the Waits record, but i also thoroughly believe he’s never made a record that’s less than a 3.5



Swordfish, Frank’s Wild Years, and Bone Machine are all on par with this

Funnily enough I always found Swordfish a bit more coherent than this. Always thought this one had a few too many songs

Album Rating: 4.7

Gonna check Swordfish shortly!

Album Rating: 4.0

My username on most things that aren’t Sputnik is Raindog2020 btw.

Album Rating: 4.5

"Swordfish, Frank’s Wild Years, and Bone Machine are all on par with this"

meditating over this after a brief liaison with Frank this morning and oh boy, he's gonna have to up his game

I can see it with Bone Machine, although the slightly fragmented nature of the track-listing is still taking me a bit of getting used to (frightfully easy to cherry-pick highlights) and Frank suffers from similar ills with an even greater emphasis on the dark cabaret theatrics (which don't always land with me).

Album Rating: 4.0

Frank’s Wild Years isn’t in the same tier as this, Bone Machine, and Swordfish. It’s far from bad, but it feels more like a transition between this persona/style and the one that he adopted in the 90s with Bone Machine and Mule Variations.



I’d also take Mule over Frank’s WY tbh.

Album Rating: 4.5

I'm feeling that may be the case with Frankie, aye it does feel somewhat transitional. Bone Machine is more convincing thus far.

Excited to try out Mule soon.

Album Rating: 5.0

This one is Down By Law, that Orleans second line funeral.