Style: lounge music
Primary Emotions/Themes: Tom uses his deep voice to grace our ears with a host of beautiful arrangements
Thoughts: Before Tom Waits became the experimental genius that he currently is, he released a series of comparatively normal albums in the 1970's. The biggest change in this period was his vocal shift that happened on Small Change. He went from a higher clean voice to the lower gruff voice that we all know and love now.
Blue Valentine is essentially the last "early" style Tom Waits album in his discography. After this he would start experimenting to various degrees. So what does early Tom Waits sound like? Well it's largely lounge based music, that talks about the human condition and common life occurrences.
There's plenty of piano, orchestra, and even some semi rock and roll tracks on here. Quite diverse, yet nothing like his later works. All of these songs sound like they should be played in a smoke filled bar where the vocalist is standing up with a half lit cigarette in their mouth and a piano as accompaniment. They just don't make music like this anymore.
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