Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
|
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
The middle album of the trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years, Rain Dogs is Waits's best overall effort. The songs are first-rate, and there are a lot of them--19 in all, ranging from grim nightlife memoirs ("9th and Hennepin," "Singapore") to portraits of small-time hustlers ("Gun Street Girl", "Union Square") to bursts of street- corner philosophy ("Blind Love", "Time"). The album also contains the original version of "Downtown Train", which Rod Stewart turned into a smash hit. The image of "rain dogs"--animals who've lost their way home because the rain has washed away their scent--is an appropriate symbol for the entire cast of characters Waits has brought to life over the years, and this album has thus far proved to be his most enduring effort. --Daniel Durchholz
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is the Tom Waits album that I keep coming back to. It was also the first one I heard many years ago and its appeal has really lasted. For anyone who hasn't heard any of Waits' music before it is also the ideal point to come in. Some of his earlier and later works ('Small Change', 'Real Gone', 'Frank's Wild Years')are much more inaccessible and require a lot of patience whilst his early stuff like 'Heart of saturday Night' is pretty unrepresentative of the bulk of his work. 'Rain Dogs' has the advantage of perfectly capturing the spirit of Waits but also being an album of very good songs. But be prepared to work at it if you are coming to Tom Waits fresh then he requires a couple of listens after the initial reaction of "What the hell is this!?!" It is wonderously atmospheric in its representation of society's dark underbelly. Waits' gravelly, liquor-soaked voice fits perfectly with the weird, carnivalesque music of tracks like "Singapore", "Rain Dogs" and "Cemetary Polka" whilst the latino-inspired "Jockey Full of Boubon" is a wonder. The lyrics throughout are simply amazing - lyrics don't come much better than "Uncle Bill will never leave a will, and the tumor is as big as an egg. He has a mistress, she's Puerto Rican, and I heard she has a wooden leg". There are just too many standout tracks here to mention, true of 'Rain Dogs' more than any other of Waits' albums. However, "Time" is simply Waits at his best musically whilst "9th and Hennepin" is him at his most poetic and evocative. Musically this album has taken virtually the entire gamut of music from jazz, blues, latin dance, rock, Cajun and American folk as its inspiration. Its beyond measure in its reach. One of the best albums ever made. (10/10 - I've loved this for years, I still do)
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This has been my favourite album for the last 10 of the 15 years I have owned it - in spite of some of the more accessible tracks like Downtown Train, Gun Street Girl and Blind Love, the album as a whole took some time to really take root in me. You may not love this right from the start but give it time, it gets under your skin. The lyrics and dogged pace of Singapore is unlike anything else (who else could describe sailors' shore leave activities as "making feet for childrens' shoes"?!), to the darkness and dankness of 9th and Hennepin, the rocking track Walking Spanish, to the 3am, whisky fuelled version of Anywhere I Lay My Hat, it's going to take at least another 10 years before I get bored of this classic.
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
This is THE strangest and most evocative album I've ever heard. I agree with a previous reviewer that it does get under your skin, the melodies and lyrics, on first hearing, seem ugly and discordant, but the more you listen the more you realise just how complex, clear and beautiful they are.
This may sound strange, but somebody should make a movie just to fit around this album...featuring seedy, foggy docksides, whaling ships, sweaty Cuban jazz clubs, hookers, cops, cigars, bourbon, tequila and steamy downtown neon-lit streets - it's all in there.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 147 reviews
4.7 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great slumming album that doesn't leave a bad smell on your clothes
I don't think that I can sum up Tom Waits 9th studio album any better than Garry Mulholland does in his quixotic Fear Of Music: The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk And Disco. Read more
Published 29 days ago by S. Bailey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good place to start
Tom Waits is a bit of an acquired taste but this record is an excellent place to start, once acquired you will have no regrets.
Published 1 month ago by C. M. Taylor
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
Good buy, very good service and great product. Received it very quickly, extremely well packed. Cannot fault it in anyway. Good company to deal with.
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Terence Collins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exclusively remastered
Island Records originally released this in 1985.
The item offered (which is an "exclusively remastered 180 gram audiophone vinyl pressing"), was released in 2011 by... Read more
The item offered (which is an "exclusively remastered 180 gram audiophone vinyl pressing"), was released in 2011 by... Read more
Published 15 months ago by C. X. Linton-Willoughby
5.0 out of 5 stars
£3.99?!
Hard to think of an album with 5 better opening tracks and that's not to say that these 5 are necessarily the best on the album. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Golactico
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blown Away!!!
Downtown Train was my first introduction to Tom Waits as is so many other people, it was on the strength of this one song i bought the album, "Bloody Hell, what an album". Read more
Published 19 months ago by zippy boi
5.0 out of 5 stars
probably waits's best album
the middle of the trilogy that best defines tom waits the artist, this is generally regarded as his best album. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Biffer Spice
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece
Yet another 5 star review! An album of staggering variety, wild invention & scarcely a weak track to be heard. Read more
Published 19 months ago by oldhasbeen
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Six stars'
The follow up to 'Swordfishtrombones' but even better ,takes you to some strange places & introduces you to some interesting characters . Read more
Published 20 months ago by D. S. Sample
5.0 out of 5 stars
Through the yellow windows of the evening train
"We sail tonight for Singapore,
We`re all as mad as hatters here"
So begins Tom Waits` eighth album, in a mood & manner that barely lets up till the exhausted last... Read more
We`re all as mad as hatters here"
So begins Tom Waits` eighth album, in a mood & manner that barely lets up till the exhausted last... Read more
Published 21 months ago by GlynLuke
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
