{"id":8396,"date":"2011-07-22T10:30:12","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T14:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8396"},"modified":"2011-07-22T10:30:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-22T14:30:12","slug":"does-tom-waits-performance-in-down-by-law-overshadow-his-entire-musical-output-and-room-for-a-discussion-on-tuxedo-vs-coffee-table-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/does-tom-waits-performance-in-down-by-law-overshadow-his-entire-musical-output-and-room-for-a-discussion-on-tuxedo-vs-coffee-table-albums\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Tom Waits&#8217; Performance in <em>Down By Law<\/em> Overshadow His Entire Musical Output? (And Room for a Discussion on &#8220;Tuxedo&#8221; vs &#8220;Coffee Table&#8221; Albums)"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L5u3XHADmk8?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I&#8217;ve got a much bigger fish to fry later today, but to get things rolling I&#8217;ve been chewing on the following thought: <em>Does <strong>Tom Waits<\/strong>&#8216; performance in <strong>Jim Jarmusch<\/strong>&#8216;s Down By Law overshadow his entire musical output?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To be clear, I own and enjoy 5 Waits albums: The trio of &#8220;junkyard&#8221; albums that first caught my attention in the mid-&#8217;80s, <em>Rain Dogs<\/em>, <em>Swordfishtrombones<\/em>, and <em>Frank&#8217;s Wild Years<\/em>, and then 2 earlier albums that an old\u00a0friend taped me after I&#8217;d finally given this artist the time of day, <em>The Heart of Saturday Night<\/em> and <em>Nighthawks at the Diner<\/em>. Oh, I also own the live album that came out last year, <em>Glitter and Doom Live<\/em>. There&#8217;s much I dig in Waits&#8217; music and lyrics, even though his hobo hipster delivery are a bit too much for me to take on a regular basis. I consider his albums <strong>Tuxedo Albums<\/strong>, that is, classy, intelligent albums I can pull out once a year for a special occasion.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike a <strong>Coffee Table Album<\/strong> (eg, any box set of an artist performing in a genre I typically don&#8217;t care about but feel I can cover in one broad stroke, such as the <strong>Patsy Cline<\/strong> box set\u00a0I bought years ago to get my wife and all other country music fans off my back) or an <strong>Olive Branch Album<\/strong> (ie, my RTH-approved <strong>Jackson Browne<\/strong> album, <em>Late for the Sky<\/em>), both of which are meant to\u00a0advertise my musical depth, diversity,\u00a0tolerance, and whatnot, my Tom Waits Tuxedo Albums make me feel really good about myself whenever I need to &#8220;clean up&#8221; and pop one on my turntable. I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ve got a few friends and acquaintences who think better of me for having seen me in the light of the album-closing version of &#8220;Innocent When You Dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, for all his fine musical tailoring, Waits&#8217; music feels intellectually dishonest and showy. His performance in <em>Down By Law<\/em>, on the other hand, is <em>One From the Heart<\/em>, to quote the title of a Copola movie he worked on. My eyes are flooded with tears of laughter any time Waits appears in that movie. I&#8217;ve never gotten half that meaningful an emotion out of a single Waits song, but man can that guy play his role in <em>Down By Law<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a shame. Tom Waits has done a lot of quality music\u2014and I know people who&#8217;ve traveled to East Jabip to see one of his rare live performances\u2014but I don&#8217;t know if he can ever top his role in <em>Down By Law<\/em>. Maybe he&#8217;s been in the wrong business all these years. What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve got a much bigger fish to fry later today, but to get things rolling I&#8217;ve been chewing on the following thought: Does Tom Waits&#8216; performance in Jim Jarmusch&#8216;s Down By Law overshadow his entire musical output? To be clear, I own and enjoy 5 Waits albums: The trio of &#8220;junkyard&#8221; albums that first caught <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/does-tom-waits-performance-in-down-by-law-overshadow-his-entire-musical-output-and-room-for-a-discussion-on-tuxedo-vs-coffee-table-albums\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,17],"tags":[34,327],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}