Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1986)
— 11 — 1 lUiaun uns&p i Recoi*«l Reviews “Rain Dogs” Tom Waits Island Records ★★★★★ Imagine Jack Kerouac singing with the Residents and Charles Ives. Tom Waits’ new album, “Rain Dogs,” sounds a bit like that. “Rain Dogs,” Waits’ ninth al bum, is his best album to date. It combines his trademark beatnik jazz with more of the more experimental music styles he used on his last album, “Swordfishtrombones.” Waits uses percussion, organ, accord ion, double bass and brass along with his own guitar, pi ano and gruff voice in a way that is uncharacteristic of most of the popular music today. But the most outstanding thing about Waits’ music is his lyrics — neo-Joycean portraits of col orful street characters, that have a much greater depth than the lyrics of most of his contem poraries. Most of Waits’ songs are dark urban street scenes filled with a various sluts, criminals, jun kies, bums, scum and the ba sically good people who are forced to live with them. Some times you sympathize with the characters and sometimes you are repulsed. But you are al ways fascinated by them. “Clap Hands,” “Cemetery Polka,” “Tango Till They’re So re,” “Diamonds &= Gold” and the title track are incredible looks at a range of different characters. “9th and Hennepin” and “Gun Street Girl” are like some of Ravmond Chandler’s mystery novels as performed by a coffee house jazz band. On “Rain Dogs,” Waits takes a look at lower-class people from all over the world. “Singa pore," with its weird percussion and atonal instrumentation, seems to be an opium-addicted sailor’s song of the seas. “Jockey Full of Bourbon” is a look at the everyday life of immigrants in a ghetto, set to a rhumba beat. Waits attempts to fuse jazz with the musical ideas of Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoen berg are most evident on the in strumental tracks “Midtown” and “Bride of Rain Dog.” “Mid town” sounds somewhat like an explosion at a jazz club. “Bride of Rain Dog,” with its eerie car nival sound, would provide an excellent background for Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” Jazz plays an important role in Waits’ music. “Walking Spanish” would be at home at any jazz club in any big city. “Anywiiere I Lay My Head,” with its brass, parade drum and pump organ, sounds like a New Orleans funeral dirge. Waits obviously understands jazz in all its forms. Not all of the songs on “Rain Dogs” are weird. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards plays on three of the most normal sounding songs on the album. “Big Black Mariah” is a rough blues song. “Union Square” is straightforward rock. “Blind Love,” with its fiddle and Rich ards’ slide guitar playing, is country. Playwright Kathleen Bren- nen, Waits’ new wife, co-wrote “Hang Down Your Head” with Waits. Waits dedicates the al bum to her and they are sup posedly working together on a musical play. There are two fantastic songs that stand out on this fantastic album. “Downtown Train” is a slow rock song similar to his earlier “Jersey Girl.” It would be nice to hear Bruce Springsteen cover this one, too. “Time” is one of the most incredible love songs to come out of the ’80s. “Time,” Leonard Cohen-ish in flavor, features a beautiful but simple interplay of guitar, acoustic bass, accordion and Waits’ voice. Waits’ music is dense. It’s not for the MTV crowd because it takes work to understand and appreciate. If you’re smart and open-minded, you’ll probably enjoy “Rain Dogs” and the rest of Waits’ albums. “The Secret Value of Daydreaming” Julian Lennon Atlantic Records ★★★ Like father, like son? Not really. “The Secret Value of Day dreaming” is Julian Lennon’s second album. Most of you know that Julian is John Len non’s son by his first wife. Ju lian’s first album, “Valotte,” was a commerical success and wasn’t too bad. It showed Ju lian understands whafs hap pening in current pop music. He did his best to make his mu sic his own, instead relying on his father’s achievements and popularity. Julian is obviously influenced by his father but he doesn’t stoop to ripping him off. “The Secret Value of Day dreaming” is much like “Valot te” in style and feel. It sounds like most of today’s pop music but there are a few outstanding tracks. Most artists have that problem of making a second al bum stand up to their first and the music on “The Secret Value of Daydreaming” does suffer from the sophomore slump. Most of the songs don’t seem out of place alongside the typ ical MTV fair. “Stick Around,” the first single off the album, fits well into top-40 radio for mat but the Ivrics are more cyn ical than those of most other artists. “You Get What You Want,” with Billy Joel on piano, is another typical song that will probably be Julian’s next hit. “I’ve Seen Your Face,” “This is My Day,” “You Don’t Have to Tell Me” and “Always Think Twice” are more of the same stuff — all planned as possible hits. If it weren’t for the synthe sizers and drum machines clouding up the mix, I might have been able like these songs. There is one song that stands out to show that Julian can write and is responsible for two of the three stars I gave the al bum. “Coward Till the End?” is about a conscientous objector. He’s objecting to war and the oppresiveness of military serv ice. He’s objecting to traditional concepts of love and the con finement of certain types of relationships. He’s objecting to the concept of fame and the ex pectations a star is suppossed to meet. “Coward Till the End?” is slower and gentler than most of the album and is filled with more emotion than all of Ju lian’s other stuff combined. It’s a huge step in the right direc tion. Julian’s music shows poten tial. He needs to develop his style more fully and better de fine where he wants to go with his music. I have faith in him. I think that one day the Lennon family, John and Julian, will be remembered as fondly as the Strauss family among music historians. by Karl Pallmeyer music reviewer