I don't usually tread in certain forums, and general is one of them, same witih lounge and punk.
Tom Waits is, to me, the greatest musician that has ever lived. I first discovered him from a GQ article that did a review on him because of his release of Alice/Blood Money. They had a sidebar with some of his lyrics and "The captain is a one armed dwarf, he's throwing dice along the wharf, in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king" from Rain Dog's Singapore caught my eye.
I downloaded whatever I could and the first song I ever heard was "House where nobody lives" off Mule Variations and after my fifth listen, I decided I'd never heard anything quite this good and decided to buy a CD. Considering that MV was also nominated for a Grammy, I decided to pick it up. I'd never heard anything like Fillapino Box Spring Hog, but it spoke to me 1000 diffrent ways.
How could a musician that stood for everything rustic, minimalist, and turn of the centruy have, not only 12 instruments on a single track, but have one of them be the turntables? I would find out an entire CD catalouge later; because he wanted to, and he liked how it sounds.
Tom Waits music doesn't speak to me simply as a musical peice of genius. Its a personal philosophy. He's done what he's wanted for nearly his entire career and he's never tried to appeal to the masses. In his 60's, he's still got a rabid fan base that other artists would die for. He's name dropped so often by musicians as soemone who is an object of admiration uet he never gets the credit he deserves. Everytime Rolling Stone does a 100 greatest artists ever, I get 50 artists who are trash, and never Tom Waits. During thier 500 greatest CD's ever he landed 3 spots and I was still pissed.
He's a great musician, writer, and singer. The latter takes awhile to get used to, but like an aquiered taste, you can't explain why no one else could ever come close.
To those who said they wanted to have sex with his voice, be cautious, sex with a voice like that will take off 7 layers of skin. But Tom Waits has always been raw and full of emotion, so maybe I want to have sex with it to.
If anyone wants some track to check out, let me know what you listen to and I'll try and engineer a playlist to get you into him.
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