Tom Waits - Bad As Me
 

Need to pick it up soon, it has been getting raving reviews. It will be the first album I actually payed for since I was about 13. I feel I owe Mr. Wait some money at this point.

I'm digging it a lot, especially the first few songs. I could do without a few of the draggy ballads in the middle of the album, but that's an ongoing disagreement Mr. Waits and I have been having for many, many years. It's also interesting to me that, after about a quarter century of progressively getting dirtier and dirtier sounding with each album, this one has the cleanest production since Swordfishtrombones. I was a little surprised by this but it actually sounds great.

Heard it before it was released through the advanced streaming program they were doing and loved every minute of it. Definitely going to have to pay for this one.

Interestingly, this is my only contention with the album. I love the dirty production of his albums, especially on Mule Variations, and it's absence here takes the album from Perfect to Great. The production still has that signature post-Swordfishtrombones Waits album sound though, and the songwriting is incredibly strong. I half agree about the ballads, but I've always liked the ballads of his post-James Taylor clone days. The ones on Mule Variations are his strongest, in my opinion.

I feel the same way about the ballads, but everything else is brilliant. AOTY contender for me.

Y'know, I've always had this line drawn in the sand when it comes to the later works of Mr. Waits (and by later I mean post-Rain Dogs). I usually stick to his earliest of early works, but I'm thinking I might wanna give this a shot.

I definitely can understand why you wouldn't like the production, dirtiness is such a key component of his style after all. Honestly, if you told me before listened to it that the album had clean production I would have predicted that I wouldn't like it, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed that aspect though.

I agree with you about the Mule Variations ballads, they are definitely a cut above, especially "Picture in a Frame" and "Take It With Me". Except for that album and a few other ballads here and there by him, I generally wish he steered clear of that style. Alice, for example, is my least favorite of his albums because it's almost entirely filled with ballads.

Ah, you know I haven't heard Alice. I heard that it wasn't worth getting so I never did.

I suppose it's worth getting. I mean even a bad Tom Waits album has some redeeming features but Blood Money, which came out at the same time, is definitely the far superior album.

In general I think I've just avoided his material that was written for plays. I don't know why, I guess I assumed it wouldn't be as personal or quality, but listening to some of the songs on YouTube I think I've probably been missing out.