 "Opened a new world of music" | 2008-03-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2YILN8E9XFPIS |
One day in 1992 a couple friends and I were browsing through albums at our local record store when Bone Machine started blaring over the store's stereo. We all stopped and just listened to a couple tracks before asking the clerk who it was. Each one of us walked out with this CD in hand. Sixteen years later this is still one of my favorite albums and it gets regular rotation at home, in the car, and at work.
If you've never heard Tom Waits before, listen to the samples first. If you can handle his voice this is a must have.
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| "Why bother reading this? Is five stars enough?" | 2008-01-05 |
| - Reviewed By mwarren122 |
If you don't know who Tom Waits is, it's okay. However though, if you like an artist with his own voice, than Tom is your man. This guy, as a song writer (paired up with his wife, Kathleen Brennan), puts you in those situations, it's nearly impossible to explain, but one listen to songs such as Murder in The Red Barn, and it comes clear. It can be pretty scary too, and as a matter of fact, these songs about death can convey death in ways you never imagined. Nearly every death metal band can't touch this. Best of all, his lyrics are direct and easy to understand. Normally, one might criticize him for that, but despite all this, his songwriting is untouchable. It's just his magic that seems to work.
Okay, there are two "meh" piano ballads, with Tom Waits trying to croon. He was A great crooner back in the day (just check out Closing Time), but Whistle Down The Wind and A Little Rain are a bit grating.
There kind of forgettable, and his voice just doesn't work that well on these tracks. It may have some cool lyrics and meaning, but it doesn't sound that great to me. IF that's not good enough for you, then _____ you. I just don't care for it because I don't like the attempts to go back to his old crooning voice.
Aside from that, the rest of the stuff is pretty much gold. Murder In the Red Barn, Earth Died Screaming, and The Ocean Doesn't Want Me are so greatly done, The Ocean Doesn't Want Me in particular, is _________ creepy. ICP sounds juvenile compared to this song. You know what? Forget trying to explain this. If you can appreciate music that's well written, Tom Waits is your man. All the words in the world can't do him justice. Some albums just may need a review. He does not.
9.0/10 |
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| "Excellence in Weirdness" | 2007-11-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3VNC34X23TXAB |
| Swinging from soul, to purely exciting garage noise, Tom Waits has gone from a singer in the back room of a bar, after hours only, singing quiet, heartfelt songs to big, noisy, deep voiced crooner of ballads that involve killers, thieves, heartbreak, crooked old men and other nasty fellows. I absolutely love Tom Waits, his music defines a very specific mood and hits the nail on the head when it comes to making the definitive "man music, music for men." |
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| "Such a Scream" | 2007-09-09 |
| - Reviewed By jbparanoid |
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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 "the middle ground" | 2007-03-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2VQN8MALXZ44N |
| this is for you fols who dont like the early stuff but you aren't ready for real gone. it won the grammay in 1992 for best alternative album.telling you it is at least worth a listen. i promise you that you wont be disapointed. |
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| "serendipity" | 2007-02-12 |
| - Reviewed By catrinka@citilink.com |
| i found this cd in a ditch beside a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere. having no jewel case, it was badly scratched. when i first played it i got scared by the sounds it made. yet i could not stop listening. and as i listened over and over again i realized that i had no need to be afraid; for, i discovered, i was hearing the music of angels. mad drunken angels, to be sure; but angels nonetheless. i listened harder and the tunes became epiphanies. I was turned in new directions, and i became me. Murphy's Law was rescinded. |
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| "A masterpiece of mayhem" | 2007-01-14 |
| - Reviewed By twilight1 |
Tom Waits's experimental edge, which began largely with SWORDFISHTROMBONES, finds its pinacle in BONE MACHINE. This is an album that would later be largely replicated with REAL GONE (a record that is so loud and busy, it takes several listens to get to the point), but is much more direct than the future album: MACHINE is about decay, both physical and psyhological, and how the erosion of time affects us all.
The gutteral "Earth Died Screaming" opens the album, while the beautiful "That Feel" (co-written with and featuring Keith Richards) closes out the set. In between, the songs range from busy, bustling stoms ("All Stripped Down"), sentimental ballads ("A Little Rain"), recitations ("The Ocean Doesn't Want Me"), even off-beat gospel ("Jesus Gonna Be Here"). The overall effect is an album that comes off as brilliant--which is simply because it IS brilliant. Tom Waits is a musical genius; his experimental edge, combined with a knack for poetic lyrics and a hooky melody (also melodies that seem to make no sense at all) pushes him far above his peers. Actually, it's safe to say that Waits has no peers--he is in a class all his own, making music like only he could. If you've never heard anything like Tom Waits, it's ok--because there ISN'T anything else like him. |
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| "Bone Machine" | 2007-01-12 |
| - Reviewed By coffee57 |
Bone Machine is an album, or a piece of art in general, that confronts all the bleak and emotional thoughts you may have on mortality in a way that only those with hearts of stone or minds of mush could turn away. Like Astral Weeks, or 3rd/Sister Lovers, you cannot go away from this album without having some change in mood. Albums like this or the afformentioned really are the epitome of expression, when you actually feel every word that pours from their lips, trembling or howling or straining. They are perfect albums in this context.
But this is a review of Bone Machine, not a critical analysis of the importance of emotional integrity in pop music. Bone Machine leaves you feeling blue but not depressed. It makes you think, about the way life can just so easily be swept up from under you at any given moment, and how you truly have to seize every opportunity and take every risk your mind tells you not to do, but in your heart you think it's right. If "we're all gonna be dirt in the ground" then why not live life now. While every song on here is a stunner, the songs that have really been a beacon of light for me are the last 4(minus Let Me Get Up On That, an instrumental). I have spent the past month driving home at midnight after being in a smokey coffee house for hours on end, hyped up and weary, and feeling the cold wind sting my face while ash hit my eyes from the tip of my cigarette while listening to Whistle Down the Wind, and just thought about how I've been in this town my whole life and need a change, and that I'm rusting here, never getting around, doing the same thing. I Don't Wanna Grow Up could very well be the anthem of my post adolescent confusion and delusion, a plea for eternal youth in the midst of adulthood and the uncertainty of what will happen the rest of my life or even the next day. That Feel, a true motivational song, a perfect sendoff from an album of such morbid contemplation. That Feel is that urge to just keep going on, that it's all gonna turn around, and you can never get rid of that zest for life, no matter how old you get, or how hard you've live, and having Keith Richards croak along with Tom, two haggard survivors who really let the longevity of their lives show in this performance. "Cross my wooden leg, and i swear on my glass eye". With a line like that, how could you resist? Bone Machine is the perfect place for Waits beginners too. Rain Dogs may be too out there and too long for the uninitiated, and with Small Change, or any of the older stuff, you don't get a real feel for the more experimental aspects of his later work. Bone Machine is the perfect mixture of boomers, bangers, ballads and blues. Get yourself a pack of unfiltered cigarettes and go for a ride on a dark night with this. You'll never be the same. |
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| "Dark? Sad? Difficult listening? I dunno about all that..." | 2006-11-18 |
| - Reviewed By dbennett@tlsinc.com |
Throughout the reviews for "Bone Machine", you'll see warnings that this music is harrowing, obsessed with death, "not the place to begin with Tom Waits."
Pshaw. This album makes me grin ear-to-ear, all the way through. This one contains some of Tom's most lovely ballads: "Who Are You", and the amazing "A Little Rain". It has some of his funniest lyrics: "Murder in the Red Barn" comes to mind.
"Cause there's nothin' strange
About an axe with bloodstains in the barn
There's always some killin'
You got to do around the farm"
The poetry on "Bone Machine" is truly (to use an overused phrase), mind-blowing. Hell, I might even go to church if they sang honest songs about mortality like the chillingly beautiful "Dirt in the Ground"! "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me" is his best spoken word piece ever. "Jesus Gonna Be Here" just flat rocks out.
Be clear about this: "Bone Machine" is not background music: it demands attention. But the bottom line: be not afraid. Strap on the headphones, pour a tall glass, and take the ride. |
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| "Gritty and great" | 2005-09-28 |
| - Reviewed By echinus |
| This is one great record. Waits transforms the darker aspects of humanity and life into a grand mythology and thus makes the hardships of existence a little more bearable. A bunch of beautiful songs that adds up to an even better album! The falsetto madness of "All Stripped Down", touching subjects as diverse as judgment day and the hard life of striptease dancers, might just have my favourite Waits lyrics ever. |
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