Tom Waits - Bone Machine
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Artist: Tom WaitsEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 1992-09-08
Music Label: Island
Soundtracks:
- Earth Died Screaming
- Dirt In The Ground
- Such A Scream
- All Stripped Down
- Who Are You
- The Ocean Doesn't Want Me
- Jesus Gonna Be Here
- A Little Rain
- In The Colosseum
- Goin' Out West
- Murder In The Red Barn
- Black Wings
- Whistle Down The Wind
- I Don't Wanna Grow Up
- Let Me Get Up On It
- That Feel
Free Music Notes for Bone Machine
Free Music Review: Such a Scream
Hit: 5 Stars
Despite his huge cult following, Tom Waits remains one of the most underrated writers and performers in all of rock. His evolution as an artist is unparalelled with the exception of an elite few (Dylan and Bowie come to mind), and he continues to be innovative while staying true to his more conventional roots in blues, folk, and jazz.
On Bone Machine, Waits takes the experimentation he began with 1983's Swordfishtrombones a step further, by applying some of the same production techniques and mash-ups of song styles to more thoroughly composed tunes. "Dirt in the Ground" is one of the most bluntly depressing ballads ever recorded, while in "Murder in the Red Barn," one of Waits best lyrical efforts ever, we're treated to such postmodern, pastoral lines as "Roadkill has its seasons, just like anything. It's possums in the autumn and it's farm cats in the spring." All the while, those sparse, gritty arrangements compliment Waits's madman-whose-seen-it-all attitude perfectly. Although Waits's use of primitive, clanking percussion (often seemingly on household objects), is common ground for many avant-garde classical composers like Cage or Varese, it is otherwise unheard-of in pop or rock. Just listen to the interplay of the screeching, panning guitars and machine gun percussion on "Such a Scream," while Waits growls suggestively surreal lines like "A cheetah coat fills up with steam - she's such a scream," and pray you maintain your sanity throughout the next thirteen songs.
You probably won't, though, since Waits starts to consider suicide in a spooky, drunken drawl on the spoken-word "The Ocean doesn't Want Me," then does his best "ironically devout Christian sings the blues with a lisp" on "Jesus Gonna be Here." By the time he sounds like a blood-lusting, politically-charged ringleader ("In the Colosseum") then transforms into a pathetic middle-aged road hog ("Goin' Out West,") you'll realize that despite his utter dismissal of nearly all conventions about what constitutes "good singing," Tom Waits is perhaps the greatest singer in all of rock. His ability to represent different characters (obviously informed by his acting experience) and then inject into each one some outrageous, unique facet of his own eccentric personality, is unprecedented. There are 15 songs with vocals on this album, and there may as well be 15 different singers, because Waits delivers a completely new performance with each song.
My only complaint about Bone Machine is that it trails off a bit at the end. "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," is a good tune about a noble subject, but doesn't match the depth of performance, or the lyrical maturity of any of the previous songs. Also, while "That Feel," is an emotionally effective song and a decent album-closer, the lyrics are incomparably vague for Waits, and one gets the impression that the presence of Keith Richards is causing Waits to level off the intensity of his own performance a bit.
Of course, these are minor quibbles. As many other reviewers have already pointed out, this is Waits at his most sublime. Bone Machine doesn't break new ground the way Swordfishtrombones or Rain Dogs did in their day, and it isn't as expansive or illuminating as his recent release, Orphans - it is simply the most mature, engaging Tom Waits album to date, and the pinnacle of a fascinating career.
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