Most albums from the mid-1980's sound exactly like that today - stuck in the 80's, usually due to an over-reliance on synthesizers & drum machines which tend to date a record before it's even released. But not this one. It's musically adventurous and features a wide range of instruments such as marimba, banjo, double bass and accordion to create a rough concept album about transients in New York City.
I like to listen to this one when I'm traveling (especially to Singapore) - songs like "Clap Hands" and "Jockey Full Of Bourbon" feature those melancholic characters that frequently pop up in Tom Waits' songs - restless travelers escaping their past, or battlers & bums looking for a place to call home.
Wait's reinvented his music in the 1980's after being semi-typecast as the boozy barfly balladeer at the piano in the 1970's, and we are all the richer for it. This album follows the unveiling of "the new Tom Waits" on 1983's Swordfishtrombones, and builds on that album's experimental base. And "Downtown Train" is on here in its original form too, before Rod Stewart got hold of it and strangled all the life and feeling out of it (cause that's what he does, see).
A great, timeless album.
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