1992 studio album by Tom Waits
Bone Machine is the eleventh studio album by American singer and musician Tom Waits, released by Island Records on September 8, 1992. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and features guest appearances by David Hidalgo, Les Claypool, Brain, and Keith Richards. The album marked Waits' return to studio albums, coming five years after Franks Wild Years (1987).
Recorded in a room in the cellar area of Prairie Sun Recording studios, described by Waits as "just a cement floor and a hot water heater", the album is often noted for its rough, stripped-down, percussion-heavy style, as well as its dark lyrical themes revolving around death and decay. The album cover—a blurry, black-and-white, close-up image of Waits apparently screaming while wearing a horned skullcap and protective goggles—was taken by filmmaker Jesse Dylan, son of Bob Dylan.[2] Dylan and Jim Jarmusch directed videos for "Goin' Out West" and "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", respectively. The latter song was covered by the Ramones on their last album, !Adios Amigos! (1995); the former featured in the movie Fight Club (1999).[3] Bone Machine won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.[4]
Recording and production
Bone Machine was recorded and produced entirely at the Prairie Sun Recording studios in Cotati, California, in a room of Studio C known as "the Waits Room", located in the old cement hatchery rooms of the cellar of the buildings. Prairie Sun's studio head Mark "Mooka" Rennick said, "[Waits] gravitated toward these 'echo' rooms and created the Bone Machine aural landscape. [...] What we like about Tom is that he is a musicologist. And he has a tremendous ear. His talent is a national treasure."[5]
Waits said of the bare-bones studio, "I found a great room to work in, it's just a cement floor and a hot water heater. Okay, we'll do it here. It's got some good echo."[6] References to the recording environment and process were made in the field-recorded interview segments made for the promotional CD release, Bone Machine: The Operator's Manual, which threaded together full studio tracks and conversation for a pre-recorded radio show format.
Bone Machine was the first Waits album on which he played drums and percussion extensively. In 1992, Waits stated: "I like to play drums when I'm angry. At home I have a metal instrument called a conundrum with a lot of things hanging off it that I've found - metal objects - and I like playing it with a hammer. I love it. Drumming is therapeutic. I wish I'd found it when I was younger."[7]
Critical reception
Entertainment Weekly gave the album its highest grade, writing: "Listening to this album is like going through an amusement-park fun house. You never know when you’re going to be shocked, thrilled, or just plain unnerved by some startling image or sound. Bone Machine finds Waits veering along the midway barking his favorite themes — decadence and death, purgatory and pain — but beneath his hellacious bellows (calling his voice raw is a compliment) and grotesque arrangements (often just samples of gnashing gears or clanging irons) lurks a caring, humanist heart. Only Waits could concoct a gospel song in which the narrator looks for salvation — and a brand-new Ford ('Jesus Gonna Be Here'). 'You must risk something that matters,' he notes on the poignant 'A Little Rain.' As modern songwriters go, this Elephant Man of pop is one of the few who does matter.[17]
Bone Machine was included on several "Best Albums of the 1990s" lists, being ranked at No. 49 by Pitchfork[18] and No. 53 by Rolling Stone.[19] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[20] Elvis Costello included it on his list of essential albums, highlighting "A Little Rain" and "I Don't Wanna Grow Up".[21]
