Editing Swans (band) (section)

=== Later years (1988–1997) ===
After the ''Children of God'' album, Gira professed himself tired with the band's fearsome reputation for noise, feeling that their audience now had expectations that he had no intention of fulfilling. He made a conscious decision to tone down the band's sound, introducing more acoustic elements and increasingly emphasizing Jarboe as a singer. The first results of this shift in direction were the two records recorded by Gira and Jarboe under the names [[Skin (US band)|Skin]] (in Europe) and [[World of Skin]] (in the US). The first, ''[[Blood, Women, Roses]]'', featured Jarboe on lead vocals, and the second, ''[[Shame, Humility, Revenge]]'', featured Gira on lead vocals. Both were recorded together in 1987, although ''Shame, Humility, Revenge'' was not released until 1988. These albums are full of slow, ethereal, melancholy, dirge-like songs, sounding like stripped-down acoustic versions of the ''Children of God'' songs.

The band continued this transformation with an unexpected cover of [[Joy Division]]'s "[[Love Will Tear Us Apart]]", which was released as a single in 1988 on Product Inc. in a confusing array of 7" and 12" inch formats. Both Gira and Jarboe sang lead vocals on different versions of the song. In later years Gira dismissed this release as a mistake, and for a long time refused to reissue his own vocal version, although Jarboe's version was re-released much sooner. However their version of the song was a hit on US college radio in 1988, which led to the group being offered a major label deal at Uni/MCA. "I'd worked so hard all my life", said Gira. "At 15, I was digging ditches in the desert in [[Israel]], and I put myself through college painting houses. I never saw any money from any of our records. So by the time I finally got that carrot dangled in front of me, it was like, 'at last, I can make a living at what I love to do.'"<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last=Perry|first=Andrew|date=March 2011|title=Swans|url=http://www.mojo4music.com/1945/mojo-issue-208-march-2011/|issue=208|page=56|journal=[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]}}</ref>

This single was followed by ''[[The Burning World (album)|The Burning World]]'' (1989), Swans' first and only major label album. Released on [[Uni Records|Uni]]/[[MCA Records]], the record was produced by [[Bill Laswell]] and expanded the acoustic palette introduced on ''Greed'' and ''Children of God''. For this album, the core line-up of Michael Gira, Jarboe and Westberg was augmented by session musicians, and the distinctive heavy guitar element of their earlier work was toned down significantly in favor of [[folk music|folk]] and [[world music]] elements. Though Swans would later explore more acoustic music with similar moods, Gira has stated that, while he admires much of Laswell's work, his efforts with Swans were simply a mismatch. The album reportedly sold 5000 copies in the UK, one of the lowest numbers in the history of MCA Records, and was soon deleted from MCA's catalogue.<ref name=":0" />

''[[The Burning World (album)|The Burning World]]'' was the first Swans album to feature more conventional pop melodies. Gira's lyrics still favored themes of [[clinical depression|depression]], death, greed and despair, but were actually sung, rather than the chanting or shouting typical of earlier material. They even [[cover version|covered]] [[Steve Winwood]]'s popular [[Blind Faith]] hit "[[Can't Find My Way Home]]", one of two singles from the LP.

In 1990, Gira and Jarboe released the third and final [[World of Skin]] album, ''[[Ten Songs for Another World]]''. It was less successful than the previous two Skin albums.

Gira's disillusionment with their Uni/MCA exploits led to ''[[White Light from the Mouth of Infinity]]'' (1991), a successful blending of earlier hard rock and later pop styles. Produced by Gira, the album blended acoustic rock, [[blues]] and hypnotic guitar noise successfully, resulting in an album more complex than anything they had released in the past. This album was followed by ''[[Love of Life (album)|Love of Life]]'' (recorded by [[Martin Bisi]] in 1992), the EP single ''[[Love of Life/Amnesia]]'', taking the group even farther into experimentation, and then ''[[The Great Annihilator]]'' (1995), considered to be one of the band's most accessible releases, possibly through being their most straightforward. The songwriting style and musical approach, however, would take a more unusual turn the following year.

[[File:Swans live.png|thumb|350px|left|The re-formed Swans performing in [[Tallinn]] in May 2011. From left to right: Thor Harris, Christoph Hahn, Phil Puleo (behind drum set), Gira, Chris Pravdica and Norman Westberg.]]

==== Demise ====
With other projects occupying his time, Gira decided to end the group with one last studio album and a world tour. ''[[Soundtracks for the Blind]]'' (1996) was a two-disc album featuring Jarboe-supplied field recordings, [[experimental music]], [[dark ambient]] soundscapes, [[Post-industrial (music)|post-industrial]] epics, [[post-rock]] suites and acoustic guitar.  In 1998, ''[[Swans Are Dead]]'' was released, consisting of live recordings from their 1995 and 1997 tours. In an interview, Gira revealed that there is more live material that may be released in the future. He described these unreleased recordings as "fairly spectacular".<ref name="An Interview with Michael Gira">{{cite web |url=http://www.soundsect.com/feature.php?id=12 |title=soundsect.com : Feature |last=Gilbert |first=Tom |date=October 12, 2007 |work=soundsect.com |access-date=February 20, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716112208/http://www.soundsect.com/feature.php?id=12 |archive-date=July 16, 2011 }}</ref>