I have recently begun to re-examine my stance on the artist Tom Waits. I mean, I always liked the song “Going Out West”, but for about the last week I have been reminded on how good much of his stuff is.
I am having trouble understanding why he is not more popular. I mean, I listen to the radio at least 3-4 hours per day and I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of his songs outside of YouTube or the movie Fight Club.
I have never owned one of his albums, however, and don’t know what is considered “good”. Spanning his career of 30-odd years, what albums can I not live without? FWIW, I think the song God’s Away on Business is completely awesome.
**Yes, I am aware there are “The Best of Tom Waits” albums, but I have been advised by some people that these are not necessarily the best of his work.
Swordfish Trombone is a great album, and if you can find it (as for some frickin’ reason it’s not available on video), Tom Waits was on Austin City Limits and gave a fanfuckingtastic performance.
Small Change is hands down my favorite. But he’s got a lot of great stuff. I tend to prefer his early albums since those were my dad’s favorites and I grew up listening to them. The early albums are more straightforward bluesy and less experimental than his recent stuff. Small Change is sort of a set of Noir soliloquies for a bunch of skid row shufflers. Fun stuff.
You can not live without Small Change - and then I’d suggest Foreign Affair & Heart Attack & Vine.
If you ask me, Rain Dogs is the midpoint of Waits’ career, between his boozy, bluesy beatnik-inspired Skid Row jazz dirges of the '70s and early '80s, and his more experimental, dissonant, world-weary, “Dust Bowl noir” persona that started in the late '80s and extends through today. It’s a long album, full of wonderful and weird and lovely songs, and I highly recommend starting with that and working your way either backwards or forwards. Swordfishtrombones, the album that immediately proceeded Rain Dogs, is also solid all the way through. Even casual Waits fans will usually recommend these.
Among earlier albums, I’d recommend the jazzy *Small Change * and Nighthawks at the Diner * (essentially a live show recorded in the studio, complete with his witty inter-song banter and plenty of audience participation), and for recent Waits, I’d go with the simultaneously-released 2002 albums Alice * and Blood Money.
Maybe it’ll be helpful if we break it down by era? They roughly correspond to his label changes in my mind; I’ll bold the ones I reckon are indispensible. So you’ve got the early lounge/jazz era (Asylum):
[ul][li]1973 - Closing Time[/li][li]1974 - The Heart of Saturday Night [/li][li]1975 - Nighthawks at the Diner[/li][li]1976 - Small Change[/li][li]1977 - Foreign Affairs[/li][li]1978 - Blue Valentine[/li][li]1980 - Heartattack and Vine[/ul][/li]Alternatively the Asylum Years compilation is a good one from this period. I wouldn’t be without Nighthawks just because it’s recorded live, and live Waits is one of history’s great pleasures, for the intros as much as the music. “I’m so horny the crack 'a dawn better be careful around me…”
Then it all goes a bit weird as Tom heads to Island Records. A bit of stylistic overlap, but here’s where he starts going Beefheartian:
[ul][li]1983 - Swordfishtrombones[/li][li]1985 - Rain Dogs[/li][li]1987 - Franks Wild Years[/li][li]1988 - Big Time[/li][li]1992 - Night on Earth[/li][li]1992 - Bone Machine[/li][li]1993 - The Black Rider[/ul][/li]Rain Dogs is my personal favourite, but those three are sort of the quintessential Waits trilogy to me. If some bugger nicks my entire CD collection tonight, those three would be the ones I run out and buy tomorrow.
Then a bit of a gap and he’s off to Anti:
[ul][li]1999 - Mule Variations[/li][li]2002 - Blood Money[/li][li]2002 - Alice[/li][li]2004 - Real Gone[/li][li]2006 - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards[/ul][/li]Not sure what to recommend from this lot; Orphans might actually be the best to start with because it covers just about every Waits base. But Blood Money and Alice are great too, and … yeah, you guys are right. I am going to end up recommending them all.
This is a great post that I agree with almost completely, particularly based on what you’ve said you liked so far. For me the first choice would be Small Change, because I cannot imagine life without Tom Traubert’s Blues.
Another vote for Rain Dogs, which has my second-favorite Waikts song, Cemetery Polka. My favorite song is The Piano Has Been Drinking, but I don’t know which album it is on.
The Piano Has Been Drinking was on Small Change. If you dig it, you may also wish to check out this YouTube video of one of his TV appearances:
Dead Badger has pretty well summed it up, though I’d take Black Rider over Bone Machine.
It may well be that you have a particular affinity for a given period. If you like the later devil’s-jug-band stuff, you might be turned off by his earlier stuff, which often has a folk/country sound. But it’s nothing but must-haves as far as I’m concerned.
The question for you is not which Tom Waits album to get, but which one to get after Nighthawks at the Diner.
