LogFAQs > #962410355

I'm really interested to see the reaction to Tom Waits by the unfamiliar. I expect some people to hate him for the same reason I love him - Tom Waits is one of the all-time great vocalists. It's not that he has a particularly beautiful voice. Quite the opposite, actually. He's the gruffest of the gruff, the type of voice one might associate with harsher genres that he uses for whatever he feels like. Rain Dogs (alongside Swordfishtrombones) is the turning point of his long, wonderful career, where he fully embraces his strange voice to start making music that belongs to him alone. An early exposure to these two albums was what convinced me to draw a line between someone being great at singing and being a great vocalist. To be great at singing simply implies having an impressive range. A great vocalist, who benefits from also being a great songwriter, can craft a song that fits their own voice like a glove. Tom Waits may not be capable of belting it out like a pop star, but they would similarly be incapable of burying these songs with covers.