Tom Waits - Closing Time [50th Anniversary Clear]

9.6.23 - 50th Anniversary Clear Vinyl LP x 2 Half-Speed Remastered

Remastered and reissued on Anti. Tom Waits' debut album from 1973 is a minor-key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness. Within the apparently narrow range of the cocktail bar pianistics and muttered vocals, Waits and producer Jerry Yester manage a surprisingly broad collection of styles, from the jazzy Virginia Avenue to the up-tempo funk of Ice Cream Man and from the acoustic guitar folkiness of I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You to the saloon song Midnight Lullaby , which would have been a perfect addition to the repertoires of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett. Waits' entire musical approach is stylized, of course, and at times derivative - Lonely borrows a little too much from Randy Newman's I Think It's Going to Rain Today - and his lovelorn lyrics can be sentimental without being penetrating. But he also has a gift for gently rolling pop melodies, and he can come up with striking, original scenarios, as on the best songs, Ol' 55 and Martha , which Yester discreetly augments with strings. Closing Time announces the arrival of a talented songwriter whose self-conscious melancholy can be surprisingly moving.