Heartattack and Vine

Released on September 9, 1980, Heartattack and Vine was Tom Waits' seventh studio album and his final release for Asylum Records, recorded that summer at Filmways/Heider Studio B in Hollywood with longtime producer Bones Howe.^[1]

The album's title came from an overheard moment on Hollywood Boulevard: a homeless woman told a bartender she was about to have a heart attack, and he coldly told her to have it outside, a bit of callousness Waits folded into his private nickname for the street. Musically, the record found Waits pairing his sentimental balladry with rougher, fuzz-guitar blues vamps, a deliberate departure he later described as an attempt to shed his old habits and, in his words, put on a different costume.^[1]

Critics received it as a transitional record, respected more than celebrated at the time but later reassessed as a hinge point between Waits' barroom-confessional 1970s work and the junkyard experimentalism of Swordfishtrombones and the albums that followed. It has since been included in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.^[1]