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Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years
 
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Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years

~ Tom Waits
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
Price: £4.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years + Used Songs (1973-1980) + The Asylum Years
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  • This item: Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years ~ Tom Waits

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  • Used Songs (1973-1980) ~ Tom Waits

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  • The Asylum Years ~ Tom Waits

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Product details

  • Audio CD (18 Jun 1999)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Mercury Records Ltd (London)
  • ASIN: B000007QQL
  • Other Editions: Audio CD
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 74,076 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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1. Hang On St. Christopher
2. Temptation
3. Clap Hands
4. The Black Rider
5. Underground
6. Jockey Full Of Bourbon
7. Earth Died Screaming
8. Innocent When You Dream (78)
9. Straight To The Top
10. Frank's Wild Years
11. Singapore
12. Shore Leave
13. Johnsburg, Illinois
14. Way Down In The Hole
15. Strange Weather
16. Cold Cold Ground
17. November
18. Downtown Train
19. 16 Shells From A 30.6
20. Jesus Gonna Be Here
See all 23 tracks on this disc

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Tom Waits pulled off a neat trick with the 1983 release of Swordfishtrombones: he disengaged himself from the present (and his own recent achievements) and allied himself with the past. And yet no one could accuse him of becoming mired in nostalgia. A decade before the phrase lo-fi gained favour, Waits purposely ravaged his songs by stomping them into peculiar shapes and utilizing arcane instruments and recording techniques to further bend them into new kinds of aural sculptures. The result was a genuine musical breakthrough. Beautiful Maladies gathers 23 tracks from Waits's seven post-Swordfishtrombones Island LPs. These pretty/ugly tracks provide a riveting view of Tom's wild years. While at least four Waits Island titles qualify as essentials, Beautiful Maladies and the 1988 live set, Big Time, provide compact introductions to a matchless body of work. --Steven Stolder


CD Description

Even if Tom Waits had ended his career in the early 1980s, before he moved over to Island Records, he would still be regarded as a mighty member of the singer/songwriter elite. This makes it all the more impressive that he completely re-invented himself after switching labels in the mid-'80s, most notably with the Holy Trinity of SWORDFISHTROMBONES, RAIN DOGS, and FRANK'S WILD YEARS. On these albums, whose highlights make up the meat of BEAUTIFUL MALADIES, Waits abandoned the jazzy, piano-bound beatnik persona he'd carefully maintained throughout the '70s. Instead he created a groundbreaking patchwork that encompassed polkas, blues, deranged cabaret, the avant-garde, and more, in a funhouse-mirror reflection of Howlin' Wolf, Kurt Weill, and Harry Partch. The fact that he'd lost none of his masterful songwriting acumen in the process insured that Waits's Island recordings, so definitively represented here, would be his lasting legacy.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best comps. available, 17 May 2006
By J. Macdonald "jmacd39" (Kent) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Hang on St. Christopher - 7/10 Not too big a fan, but a good thunderous opener.

Temptation - 7/10 Surreal, wailing and quite eerie.

Clap Hands - 10/10 One of his best, a very creepy tale of insanity.

Black Rider - 8/10 A darkly comical cabaret in a german accent.

Underground - 9/10 A pounding drum beat and Tom's first weird song.

Jockey Full of Bourbon - 9/10 Guitar driven latin tale of dark alleyways.

Earth Died Screaming - 9/10 Apocalyptic howling gospel of bones.

Innocent When You Dream - 8/10 Tear-jerking tale of lost memories.

Straight To The Top - 7/10 Sinatraesque swinger.

Frank's Wild Years - 10/10 His best spoken word, surreal tale of midlife crisis.

Singapore - 10/10 Possibly his best song ever, a thundering vaudevillian stream of concious.

Shore Leave - 9/10 Eerie, atmospheric sonic landscape.

Johnsburg, Illinois - 8/10 Short, sweet ballad from Tom to his wife, Kathleen.

Way Down In The Hole - 8/10 In preacher mode, a biblical rant about avoiding Satan.

Strange Weather - 8/10 French sounding grumble about the ignorance of strangers.

Cold, Cold Ground - 9/10 Live version of the emotional tale of a little guy in a little house...

November - 8/10 Ethereal, theatrical ballad about autumn.

Downtown Train - 10/10 His greatest love song, raped by Rod Stewart.

16 Shells From A 30.6 - 9/10 Barking, rocker about...well, what?

Jesus Gonna Be Here - 9/10 Preacher mode again, more deranged and less optimistic.

Good Old World - N/A Not heard yet.

I Don't Wanna Grow Up - 10/10 More mainstream, but brilliant nonetheless.

Time - 8/10 Overrated, but still emotional and tear-jerking.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bruising and Beautiful, 19 Jun 2001
By scott.crawford@virgin.net (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
A fine collection of some of Tom's best known and downright strange tunes. From the screaming rawness of Temptation, the German dance hall weirdness of The Black Rider and the gentle lilt of Time, this compilation should satisfy long term fans and also those new to the strange world of Mr Waits. There's plenty to choose from too, with over 20 tracks it offers a whole range of stuff. My own favourite? Hmm....hard to choose but I'd have to say Jesus Gonna Be Here - a nasty smoke and liqour drenched blues paean to religion and the human spirit......ends with a tremendous cough from the effort put in (even by his standards, this one's gravelly!!!). Wonderful stuff. It doesn't matter whether you are a long standing fan or if you want to experience the unusual and dark Underground of Singapore - give into the music of Tom Waits and buy this NOW!!
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Most of the highlights but not all, 29 April 2002
By M. Brown (Cardiff United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This compilation of the Island Years, was put together by Tom himself, but excludes a few of his finest recordings from that time. There's no 'In The Neighbourhood', arguably his finest and most memorable recording from the Island period, no 'Soldier's Things', undoubtedly his best song from the period, and no 'Raindogs', one of his finest left field recordings of the period. It leads one to question whether an artist should compile their own work. It's hard to understand the inclusion of a piece as lightweight as Temptation, with the comical Prince falsetto. It would have been nice to have had 'A Little Rain' or 'Whistle Down The Wind' from Bone Machine, or the incredibly touching, 'The Briar And The Rose' from The Black Rider. If one judges what actually is included, then it's utterly brilliant, but it's not a worthwhile buy for committed Waits fans. All the recordings have been heard before, so there's really no incentive for that constituency. As an introduction to the Island period, without the three pieces mentioned, it feels badly incomplete. For me, 'In The Neighbourhood' was the gateway into the new Waits, so without it, there's a sense of being plunged unaware into the oeuvre if one is just discovering the genius of Waits. On the plus side, there's the beautiful 'November', the incomparable avant garde stomp of 'Singapore', his second best song from the period, 'Time', the superb Beefheartian howl of 'Earth Died Screaming', the skewed blues of '16 Shells', the tender sophistication of 'Johnsburg Illinois', the dark Germanic fun of 'The Black Rider', the superb rhythmic tightness of 'Jockey Full Of Bourbon', and the wonderfully atmospheric 'Shore Leave'. For the uninitiated it's a worthwhile purchase, though there's no substitute for owning at least the first three Waits albums on Island (Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years, together constituting the most adventurous and visionary music of the eighties). Swordfishtrombones is always the first port of call, as it broke the mould completely, and laid the visionary path he would continue to follow for the subsequent twenty years.
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Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years
51% buy the item featured on this page:
Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years 4.7 out of 5 stars (3)
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