Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genius, March 9, 2002
Few artists ever seek to completely re-invent themselves on record, and fewer still make the transformation as completely successfully as did Tom Waits. His 70's albums are revered for their delicate, string-landen piano work with Waits croaking out lyrical strands of barstool philosophizing in a pseudo-Louis Armstrong growl. These albums are good, strong efforts, but they had become somewhat predictable by the time of 1980's Heart Attack & Vine (although that album, and it's predecessor, Blue Valentine, had started to introduce new elements into Waits's music.) Swordfishtrombones, then, was a complete re-invention. Out go the strings and piano work (almost entirely in the case of the former, much less overt in the case of the latter), out go to late night bar-obsessed Beat poetry of the lyrics, out goes the Louis Armstrong growl. This album, instead, featured light, sparse, percussion-driven arrangements, with chugging basslines and occasional freakish burts of kaleidoscopic guitar. Lyrically, it was still drenched in weirdness, but moreso than ever - Waits's tales range from the insane poetry that would come to dominate his next album, Rain Dogs (Underground, Shore Leave), to his other typical 80's style song that he still leans on heavily in concert when he plays (16 Shells, Down, Down, Down), to the outright bizzarre and hilarous (Frank's Wild Years, In The Neighborhood.) We also see his vocals take on a more Howlin' Wolf-esque leaning - one critic described the album as sounding like "The Three Penny Opera as sung by Howlin' Wolf." Although this was the prototype for all the rest of his albums since it, it can be a bit hard to get used to (not that all of his albums aren't), if you are used to his earlier efforts. But, like any great album, it takes some time to grow on you. After several listens, you will come to appreciate that this is an album of unique genius. Rain Dogs would be the apex of this era of Tom's songwriting, and his masterpiece may indeed have come in 1992 with Bone Machine, but Swordfishtrombones is a brave, admirable total re-invention the likes of which we almost never see. It's an essential Waits album.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smashingly successful experiments from a master of lyrics!, January 30, 1999
By A Customer
This album represented a new chapter in Tom's career, and a stunning chapter it's been. This is the album to play for people who have never heard him before, because it showcases all of his talents: strong emotional lyrics that don't stoop to hackneyed sentimentalism and tired "heartland" images; sturdy, singable melodies with a voice that sounds the way the characters in the songs would most likely sound; and a willingness to experiment with new sounds, old sounds, weird sounds, and most of all...effective sounds. Here is a man who, like Kurt Vonnegut in literature, shows us the ugly side of man, and shows us how to love him anyway. I only wish I had made it myself! The criticism I hear most often of this artist is that the listener doesn't "like his voice". These are often the same people that would pan Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan. If you need proof that Tom can sing, listen to "Johnsburg, Illinois." He's got humor, he's got sensitivity, and he's got a vicious way of getting ride of Chihuahua's. Don't miss out.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing and Uncompromizing, June 11, 2004
By the early 1980's, Tom Waits had perfected his style. His beatnik-barroom persona was clearly defined, his throaty voice familiar to a very dependable, if not especially large, fan base. This is the point at which most popular musicians reach an apex, enter "legendary" status, and release a string of albums that often simply pastiche their earlier successes. But Tom Waits is not an ordinary "popular musician."Consequently, he re-invented himself in 1983 with Swordfishtrombones. Choosing to jettison his record label and produce the new album himself, he also left behind the combination of strings and piano that had backed so many of his previous songs, replacing them with scratchy electric guitars (often plucked), bizarre organs, glass harmonicas, and most of all, a huge variety of drums. The result is a CD full of arresting soundscapes in which his voice, always distinctive, becomes an instrument in its own right. The lyrics are different also. Though he is still most certainly singing about life's unfortunates, the typical references to hookers, bars, and closing time are replaced with mystifying, often nightmareish story-lyrics in which the listener more often gets the gist, rather than the details, of the circumstances described. Though "Frank's Wild Years" is a spoken song and might at first seem similar to the spoken-word masterpieces of, say, Nighthawks at the Diner, this song is not about your typical drunkard but rather a psychopath who, unable to stand his suburban existance, burns down his house and drives away laughing. In fact, discontent with the city is prevalent on the songs here; there's the unflatteringly depicted seaport in "Shore Leave," a "Town With No Cheer," and the suburban nightmare of "In The Neighborhood," which sounds like a Fourth-of-July anthem with a hangover. Of course, Waits himself would eventually move to the country, a move reflected in 1993's Bone Machine. All in all, this disc is unbeatable. Waits's voice, sounding amazingly young and cocky compared with his recent releases, is in top form. His poetry, though considerably more obscure than what he has written afterward -- sometimes to the point of complete mystification -- is evocative and startling, and as always, sounds great when sung with Tom's unusual phrasing. And the music itself, ranging from the brutally percussive opener "Underground" to the wild blues-rock of "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six," to the acerbic organ on "Frank's Wild Years," and the obligatory gorgeous ballads "Johnsburg, Illinois" and "Soldiers Things," is among the best Waits ever composed. Swordfishtrombones, which was both an important career move for Waits and an album on which every song matters and is well placed, should not be missed by anyone interested in some of the best American popular music of all time.
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by Tom Waits 
