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Artist: Tom Waits
Album: Closing Time
Release Date: 1973
Recording Date:
Label: Asylum
Time:
Reviewby William Ruhlmann
Tom Waits' debut album is a minor-key masterpiece filled
with songs of late-night loneliness. Within the
apparently narrow range of the cocktail bar pianistics
and muttered vocals, Waits and producer Jerry Yester
manage a surprisingly broad collection of styles, from
the jazzy "Virginia Avenue" to the up-tempo funk of "Ice
Cream Man" and from the acoustic guitar folkiness of "I
Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You" to the saloon
song "Midnight Lullaby," which would have been a perfect
addition to the repertoires of Frank Sinatra or Tony
Bennett. Waits' entire musical approach is stylized, of
course, and at times derivative — "Lonely" borrows a
little too much from Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going
to Rain Today" — and his lovelorn lyrics can be
sentimental without being penetrating. But he also has a
gift for gently rolling pop melodies, and he can come up
with striking, original scenarios, as on the best songs,
"Ol' 55" and "Martha," which Yester discreetly augments
with strings. Closing Time announces the arrival of a
talented songwriter whose self-conscious melancholy can
be surprisingly moving.
© 2007 All Media Guide, LLC.
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