Tom Waits

[BX]

I just downloaded a large amount of Tom Waits discography, and I want some opinions of his best stuff, albums etc.

[Nighthawk]

Easy.

 

Everyone will tell you that Rain Dogs is the best, then Swordfishtrombones. True enough. Second tier is stuff like Franks Wild Years and Bone Machine. Closing Time, Heartattack and Vine and Small Change are all pretty swank albums in their own right.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

I love pretty much everything he's released, but yeah, what Milky said. Swordfishtrombones or Franks Wild Years are good, reasonably approachable intros to the Island Records style, and Small Change is my personal favorite of the Asylum albums.

[Jingus]

Beautiful Maladies was the first album I had of his, and it's not a bad choice since it offers a varied sampling of work he did over a period of several years. Admittedly I've been sadly lax at keeping up with his work like I should, but Small Change was probably my favorite out of the ones I've heard.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH!]

I'll second what Nighthawk and Edwin said and also give a shout out to Alice, which is really good and relatively accessible. There's some deeply moving shit on that record.

 

Also, Mule Variations is boring and sorta sucks. I'd recommend not even bothering with it unless you feel the need to be a completest or whatever.

[Jingus]

Also, Mule Variations is boring and sorta sucks. I'd recommend not even bothering with it unless you feel the need to be a completest or whatever.

It kinda did, didn't it, sadly enough. There's some interesting stuff on there, "What's He Building In There?" being my personal fave, but a lot of the eighteen songs on this friggin' endless album just felt like filler.

[BX]

I'm listening to Alice right now. God, I'm in love with this record. The first five songs are absolutely dynamite.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

Also, Mule Variations is boring and sorta sucks. I'd recommend not even bothering with it unless you feel the need to be a completest or whatever.

It kinda did, didn't it, sadly enough. There's some interesting stuff on there, "What's He Building In There?" being my personal fave, but a lot of the eighteen songs on this friggin' endless album just felt like filler.

I put Mule Variations somewhere in the middle, but it does feel overlong (Real Gone, despite also being Real Good, suffers from the same thing). There are some tremendous song on there, though: "Big in Japan," "Hold On," "House Where Nobody Lives," and "Come On Up To The House" are faves of mine.

[BX]

Holy God, the two closing tracks on Alice are amazing as well.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH!]

The thing about Mule Variations is that it doesn't really do anything that isn't done better somewhere else in his catalog. It's just sort of a hodge-podge of different styles and as such never really develops a coherent, individual identity of its own. At least that's how I remember it; I haven't listened to it in years and am at present unable to locate my copy.

 

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

That's what it is, yeah. "Big in Japan" is a rewrite of "Hang On, St. Christopher," basically.

 

Make sure you get around to Blue Valentine, a pretty neat little transitional album. The Leonard Bernstein cover doesn't fit at all, though, and would've been better on The Heart of Saturday Night or maybe dumpy old Foreign Affairs, since it's big and orchestrated whereas everything else here tends to be pretty sparsely arranged and dark, like a shorthanded bar band. Skip track 1 and start with "Red Shoes by the Drugstore" instead. The other Transitional Waits is Heartattack and Vine. Not as sonically compelling. Not crucial.

 

I'm glad you love Alice, but Blood Money and The Black Rider are completists-only, just warning you.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH!]

Blood Money isn't very good, but I can't bring myself to completely dismiss an album that makes room for a two minute calliope solo.

[PLAGIARISM!]

Meh, nothing wrong with Blood Money. Average by his standards, but good enough.

[Ravenbomb]

I'd start with Closing Time, it's his best album and one of his more accessable ones.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS!]

I prefer Nighthawks at the Diner for the atmosphere, but Swordfishtrombones and the subsequent Frank's Wild Years are also favorites of mine.

[Gary Floyd]

I always thought Bone Machine was his best. The whole thing just sounds unhinged, like a walking nightmare. I love it.

[Copper Feel]

It's probably worth noting that the Tom Waits of 1973 - 1982 was a jazz pianist who crooned about alcoholism and lonely visits to nightclubs, whereas the Tom Waits of 1983 and beyond has pursued only the strangest of sounds.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

Some months back, in order to psyche myself up for seeing Tom Waits live, I listened to a bunch of his albums, many of which I hadn't played in a long, long time. This included Blood Money, an album that, in hindsight, surprises me I ever looked favorably on. Perhaps my once-rabid devotion to Waits made me something of an apologist for his lesser works; yet, even at a time in my life when I would go days on end without listening to anything other than Waits, I still didn't like The Black Rider.

 

Mule Variations is underrated. Yes, it could used some editing, and yes, it's largely nothing new, but it's all done well. It contains some of Waits' very best ballads (the aforementioned "Hold On" and "House Where Nobody Lives," as well as "Picture in a Frame") and a lot of fun blues songs.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

I have a soft spot for The Black Rider, largely attributable to when I saw a pretty cool performance of the play in London four years ago. Without that, though, "Lucky Day" is really its only must-have song.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

I like "The Briar and the Rose" quite a bit, enough to where it was a mix staple for awhile. I don't remember much else about the album, "Lucky Day" included.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

Lots of shouting, references to cans of beans, etc., and a modestly heartbreaking refrain delivered with the usual enthusiasm. I'm fond.

[C Dubya 04]

I love Closing Time. The lounge feel to the album is more in line with the type of music I like though. I enjoy most of the rest (especially Rain Dogs), but Closing Time is my favorite by a good margin.

[ohnobadboi]

if ANYONE will make me a musicvfeio of KANE doing cool shit to his song about killers theives and lawters and God being mad at us, I wll write them fanfcition about the office or kane or comic books ro anything really