Tom Waits
Swordfishtrombones

THE REVIEW

For some time now, I have decided to broaden my musical horizons. For too long, in fact, I've only been listening to Queen, and even though every song is always an emotion, and every time I hear "Bohemian Rhapsody" I always get goosebumps, I think it's right to open up more and more, discover new things, new sounds, open up to new perspectives.

At the moment, still staying within the Rock realm, I'm diving into The Who or Pink Floyd, while thanks to a friend, I'm opening up to new genres like Jazz or Electronica. On his advice as well, I’m exploring a bit of Onda Rock, the site that provides a real vision of Rock and everything surrounding it. While browsing this site, I came across an author whose name seemed very familiar: Tom Waits. I couldn't quite recall who he was, so I listened to what Onda Rock cites as a milestone: Swordfishtrombones.

Compared to everything I used to listen to, here we are in completely different music, which isn’t based on energy or guitars like in the classic Rock'n roll song, but rather relies on more meditative, relaxing, and very sweet atmospheres. In general, the album made a great impression on me, especially what Onda Rock defines as a voice "smoke and honey", which carries the mind and imagination. A very peculiar and beautiful voice, one that manages to be sweet and gritty, yet never boring or annoying. This was precisely what happened to me: while listening to an album, in fact, (perhaps due to the distrust of the first listen), I didn't feel that urge that drives me to keep listening to a CD.

A good album, on the other hand, should captivate the listener, make them soar in their imagination at times. Swordfishtrombones succeeds in this. Between Waits' unique blues-man voice, the mellifluous rhythms of the piano, and partly the brevity of the songs, I couldn’t even change a single song to "see how it would end". I'm sorry to keep citing Onda Rock, but here is what I think best defines Waits as an artist: "White blues-man, damned poet, the quintessential singer of the American Underground". Unfortunately, it makes me ponder the fact that a man who managed to write and create immense masterpieces, endowed with extraordinary vocal strength, could have fallen into the pit of "vices". Perhaps it is a prerogative of a famous man, who by putting together notes manages to make us dream and change our mood, or better yet put it into music.

Returning to the album, I don't think it's necessary to make a tedious list of each song, highlighting its pros or cons (which I didn’t find anyway), since being beautiful as a whole, the album doesn’t need it. With this, I certainly don't intend to diminish the honor that this CD would deserve by analyzing its songs, so much so that each single track is a single pearl. However, I believe that instead of the pearls, we should look at the necklace they form: a necklace that suits everyone a bit, even those who, like me, have only recently approached this artist.

In conclusion, this album is, in my opinion, the practical demonstration that a CD and the music it has recorded is immortal. In his songs, Waits talks about the streets of Los Angeles at night, his wife’s country, friends, people who have somehow left a mark on him, and he manages to make us perceive every single emotion, almost 25 years after the album’s release.

I don't believe I am a music critic, much less someone who understands a lot about music, in fact, I write because I would like to convey to you what an album has conveyed to me. And it is precisely by listening to these CDs that I realize what "Music" is, and how today we hear less and less of it.