Customer Reviews

The Asylum Years

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is some incredibly beautiful music by a man who defies description. This is the place to start if you only know Waits from other peoples versions of his songs.

I have a hard time identifying with some of his cds, Swordfishtrombones,for example, but I really don't understand the slagging by Alex,who seems,by the depth and bredth of his reading and musical reviews, to have somewhat of a mind/open/education thing going. maybe it was an injoke with a friend...., but let your ears and imagination be your guide on a one of a kind ride with Tom Waits and this CD.

Tom Waits has finally been nominated for induction into the RRHOF this year. He is an extraordinary talent both as a songwriter and performer. True, his trademark growl is not to everyone's liking but his voice is very compelling if one takes the time to really listen. Highlights on this wonderful set include the marvellous Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen), the moving Martha, the evocative Kentucky Avenue (my personal favourite on the set), the clever and cynical Small Change and, surprisingly, the revelatory interpretation of Somewhere. There is no weak track here in my view.

I have looked for such a long time for this CD. I was turned on to it 19 years ago and no one seems to be able to order it. I was told that the only company that could provide it was in Canada. I gladly found that to be less than the highest truth. It came quickly as well in perfect condition!

It is completely beyond me how anyone could, during 1993's postmodernist zenith, unselfconsciously produce such a blatantly self-indulgent bucket of singer songwriter vomit. Apparently people bought the album and trudged through the first two tracks. They probably even had sex to it (in the back of junkyard station wagons, no doubt). I will never wrap my head around this, just as I will never wrap my head around people who pay real money to unironically subject themselves to Nic Cage movies and musical theater.

I can only thank God that this album has been forgotten by time, and I will leave it at that. There are probably deformed bastard children walking around Boston as we speak who were conceived under the bland fumes of The Asylum Years' stink, and that's just too much to handle on this slushy Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say that I did not enjoy this dull record, this heavy lidded blank stare of an album, and I'm happy about the chance that I'll never again have to meet its gaze. If you like, feel free to be influenced by that, but also feel free to have awful musical tastes.