Tom Waits, Rain Dogs...

Yeah, I agree that Waits really is one of a kind. My first experience with his work was hearing "Heart Attack and Vine" in college. It blew me away, and I've been a big fan ever since. "Swordfishtrombones" is my personal favorite, although there are lots of great ones to choose among. The lyrics really are just about perfect, but I also do love those "kaleidoscopic" soundscapes you mentioned. Have you heard the two Latin Playboys albums? The band is a kind of side project for members of Los Lobos, and they get that same kind of vibe, at least in terms of the sound. Much different from anything Los Lobos has done, even their more experimental records, like Colossal Head and Kiko.

Thanks for your suggestions! I will track them down.

I find this thread interesting because my first reaction was similar to Marco's. Upon further consideration, as Springsteen's music has gotten darker over the years, I can see where it's starting to approach Waits' sandbox(at least lyrically). In that way, they are plying the same territory. Musically, IMHO, the best you can say is that both are rooted in the blues which occassionally allows for some overlap.

To me, the biggest difference is that Springsteen is literal (both musically and lyrically) where Waits is more fantasical (word advisedly chosen to reference the literary genre). Waits' musical style abstracts traditional rock vocabularly while Sprinsteen's celebrates it. Waits' lyrical style takes dark tales of America toward the surreal, rather than Sprinsteen's real.

I'll take Waits, but I'll also take TC Boyle over Richard Russo - not necessarily the first alternatives you might pair, but not unlike the one posed by this thread and, IMHO, not unreasonable. My taste runs toward the more obviously "imaginative" take on certain common themes, but I also understand why some folks would go the other way.

Marty

Try "mule." Even better than "rain."

Try "mule." Even better than "rain."

I love all Waits stuff, but I would say that Mule Variations, Bone Machine, and his more recent stuff are perhaps less "accessible" to your average listener than Rain Dogs, and even more so than his earlier stuff like "Small Change" and "Blue Valentine". Not to discourage anyone from getting it, but it is a further and further distanced from anything from Springsteen that I've ever heard. I doubt you will ever hear Springsteen covering "Filipino Box Spring Hog" anytime soon :-) I find myself listening to his Island Records releases most of all. I have to be in the right mood for the more recent stuff like "Alice" and "Blood Money", though I do love both. They have sharper teeth and can be more jarring in that way. Really easy to listen to are the earlier stuff I mentioned above, but those do not have the textural complexities of soundscape that he started to really start to develop later on. The best-of CD I was thinking of from the Island years is titled Beautiful Maladies.