Swordfishtrombones isn't nearly as abrasive as I was thought it would be, based upon some of your comments. I was expecting his version of Trout Mask Replica. Mind you, 'Underground' had me a little concerned, but it's more a natural evolution of what he was doing with Heartattack.

With its jarring rhythms and unusual instrumentation -- marimba, accordion, various percussion -- as well as its frequently surreal lyrics, Rain Dogs is very much a follow-up to Swordfishtrombones, which is to say that it sounds for the most part like The Threepenny Opera being sung by Howlin' Wolf. The chief musical difference is the introduction of guitarist Marc Ribot, who adds his noisy leads to the general cacophony. But Rain Dogs is sprawling where its predecessor had been focused: Tom Waits' lyrics here sometimes are imaginative to the point of obscurity, seemingly chosen to fit the rhythms rather than for sense. In the course of 19 tracks and 54 minutes, Waits sometimes goes back to the more conventional music of his earlier records, which seems like a retreat, though such tracks as the catchy "Hang Down Your Head," "Time," and especially "Downtown Train" (frequently covered and finally turned into a Top Ten hit by Rod Stewart five years later) provide some relief as well as variety. Rain Dogs can't surprise as Swordfishtrombones had, and in his attempt to continue in the direction suggested by that album, Waits occasionally borders on the chaotic (which may only be to say that, like most of his records, this one is uneven). But much of the music matches the earlier album, and there is so much of it that that is enough to qualify Rain Dogs as one of Waits' better albums.

This was a great album and can easily see why this gets lauded. Oddly enough, I'd say that this seems like it should be the soundtrack to some sort of fucked up film. It kind of elicits that kind of a feel. And 'Frank's Wild Years' should have run at least 10 min, I think.

Yeah, this is where it all comes apart.

Songs like 'Singapore' and 'Cemetary Polka' are precisely what I used to imagine what all Tom Waits must sound like and why I never wanted to even give him a chance. But then songs like 'Clap Hands', 'Jockey Full of Bourbon' and 'Hang Down Your Head' are pretty great. I don't know, I'll keep muddling through Rain Dogs the whole way but multiple listens are gonna be tough.

On this note, I'm suspending the Waits project until Tuesday. Rain Dogs beat me. The second half was all right but it's definitely the least enjoyable album I've heard thus far. Some great songs are embedded in there, much like a series of benign polyps in a shit-filled cancerous colon.

Rain Dogs. it's kinda hard to wrap my head around the fact that this came out in 1985. I mean, just about any other time would make more sense for this than smack-dab in the middle of the '80s.

So, I guess DumpJack's off of this until next week? I'm debating whether or not to bring Frank's Wild Years with me to work tomorrow and forge ahead on my own.

Jump ahead, Drinky and I'll catch up on Monday with Frank's Wild Years; I'll be starting full bore again until the bitter end this Monday. Actually I'm morbidly curious as to what lies next.

Tom Waits wrote a song called "Frank's Wild Years" for his 1983 Swordfishtrombones album, then used the title (minus its apostrophe) for a musical play he wrote with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and toured with in 1986. The Franks Wild Years album, drawn from the show, is subtitled, "un operachi romantico in two acts," though the songs themselves do not carry the plot. Rather, this is just the third installment in Waits' eccentric series of Island Records albums in which he seems most inspired by German art song and carnival music, presenting songs in spare, stripped-down arrangements consisting of instruments like marimba, baritone horn, and pump organ and singing in a strained voice that has been artificially compressed and distorted. The songs themselves often are conventional romantic vignettes, or would be minus the oddities of instrumentation, arrangement, and performance. For example, "Innocent When You Dream," a song of disappointment in love and friendship, has a winning melody, but it is played in a seesaw arrangement of pump organ, bass, violin, and piano, and Waits sings it like an enraged drunk. (He points out the arbitrary nature of the arrangements by repeating "Straight to the Top," done as a demented rhumba in act one, as a Vegas-style Frank Sinatra swing tune in act two.) The result on record may not be theatrical, exactly, but it certainly is affected. It also has the quality of an inside joke that listeners are not being let in on.

Songs like 'Temptation' kind of stop me in my tracks.

In a good or bad way? I love that one.

There are several really good to great songs on this album, but on the whole it just doesn't work that that well for some reason. The previous two albums just flow so effortlessly, and this one feels really cumbersome and overlong. It's weird, and I can't quite pinpoint what's missing. Taken out of context, I love "Temptation", "Hang on St. Christopher" and "Straight Up to the Top", though.