Rain Dogs

Tom Waits is nothing if not an American performer. As one listens to his music, one gets a sense of American music from the turn of the century to today. His repertoire includes Jazz, Spanish flavor music, Sideshow, Vaudeville and Burlesque music, and more traditional country and rock 'n' roll music. On "Rain Dogs," we get to here him perform all these things exceedingly well. The album opens with "Singapore," a bizarre rollicking tune concerning sailors on shore leave, a popular theme with Waits. This song, along with others like "Diamonds and Gold," "Cemetery Polka" and "Clap Hands" all use strange scales which give it the affectation and mystery of a traveling sideshow or gypsy camp. Marimbas and guitars dance up and down, a perfect contrast to Waits's voice which bellows through like dirty coal train.

Although this style is one of Waits's signatures, he also has a grip on more accessible styles of music. Songs like "Union Square," "Tango till They're Sore" and "Walking Spanish" demonstrate Waits's affectation for both the '50s and all different types of Jazz music, which he performs well, and to which he adds stylistic elements that are of his own creation. Perhaps some of the high points on this album come when he is making simple folk and rock music. "Gun-Street Girl" is a fascinating, if somewhat creepy, banjo tune, much more stripped down than other songs on the album. Perhaps the friendliest song on the album is "Downtown Train," a distinctly '80s rock song which even could have possibility on the radio. Waits's musical focus is scattered like buckshot across the history of American music, but his aim is nearly always true.