Bad As Me

Tom Waits | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 24, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Anti
• ASIN: B005IGVX0M
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,242 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Throughout his career, Tom Waits has created milestone albums that serve both to refine the music that has come before, and to signal a new phase in his career: Rain Dogs and Mule Variations are both counted by fans as among these pivotal works. Now comes Bad As Me, his first studio album of all new music in seven years, which finds Tom Waits in possibly the finest voice of his career and at the height of his songwriting powers, working with a veteran team of gifted musicians and longtime co-writer/producer Kathleen Brennan. From the opening horn-fueled chug of “Chicago,” to the closing barroom chorale of “New Year’s Eve,” Bad As Me displays the full career range of Waits’ songwriting, from beautiful ballads like “Last Leaf,” to the avant cinematic soundscape of “Hell Broke Luce,” a battlefront dispatch. On tracks like “Talking at the Same Time,” Waits shows off a supple falsetto, while on blues burners like “Raised Right Men” and the gospel tinged “Satisfied” he spits, stutters and howls. Like a good boxer, these songs are lean and mean, with strong hooks and tight running times. And there is a pervasive sense of players delighting in each other’s musical company that brings a feeling of loose joy even to the album’s saddest songs. Bad As Me is a Tom Waits album for the ages.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 114 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Tom Waits - Digs around the junk yard of American music and strikes gold October 24, 2011

By Red on Black TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

Anyone thumbing through Tim Adams revealing interview with Tom Waits in last weeks Observer (23/10/11) should also read the subsequent comments upon it by Waits aficionados who are a particularly articulate bunch. One summarizes his Waits infatuation with the immortal line that "Tom Waits. He's the Dad I never had, the brother who wouldn't play with me, and the sister with the strangely deep voice". You know what he means. Tom Waits is both a one-man history of American music but also a vivid reflection of our lives ribald joys, drunken disasters, tender moments and defeated heartaches. He is a first class honours American maverick and the most genuinely original artist in modern rock music. On "Bad as me" he is back in over powering form and rocking harder than he has done for years. "Anyone who has ever played a piano," Waits has previously stated, "would really like to hear how it sounds when dropped from a 12th-floor window" and on his 17th album he does on occasions make a mighty racket. He is helped in this task by the presence on the album of his wife Kathleen Brennan, guitarist Marc Ribot, Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and a previous collaborator that other old blues reprobate Keith Richards.

The album starts with "Chicago" a roaring blast of horns and fast chops which sees Waits in fine voice and doing a Casey Jones style "all aboard" chant. He follows it by outdoing Nick Cave in the dirty blues stakes with "Raised Right Man" where Waits exclaims "Heavens to murkatroid/Miners to coal/A good women can make a diamond out of a measly lump of coal". Throughout the album Waits serves up a Royal Variety Performance in terms of styles whether it be on the ghostly rolling "Talking at the same time" which is the nearest Waits has come to delivering a falsetto or the whiskey soaked "Last leaf" destined to soundtrack many deep stares into the bottom of a glass where Richards and Waits draw upon all their vast expertise.

In broad terms "Bad as me" is a very approachable and accessible album and certainly those whose "boats are floated" by the experimentation of "Swordfishrombones" with its mix of German cabaret and free jazz leanings may find it too straightforward. Thus for example "Satisfied" is a great rock stomp and will delight live audiences but were it done by anyone other than Waits it could be seen as derivative. Yet as always with the great man appearances deceive. The pounding almost industrial drums on "Hell broke Luce" reveal a blues sensibility that modern music has lacked since Captain Beefheart popped his clogs and the weird imagery of the swirling title track shows his continued ability to challenge.

It is great to see strong song structures back at the heart of his work and when they come in the form of the brilliant "Face the highway" or the gorgeous `Put me back in the crowd" which has been described by Waits as "Elvis meets Jim Reeves" this should be a cause for unbounded celebration. This feeling will be further confirmed after listening to the irrepressible rockabilly of "Get lost" which is almost pure New Orleans funk and guaranteed to storm any party. Waits as ever obliges by giving you an equally exquisite comedown in the form of the classic heartbreak ballad "Pay me" standing in the fine tradition of lonely laments such as "Nobody knows when I'm gone"

Ultimately "Bad as me" is a fiercely intelligent and savvy album which profitably raids the junkyard of American music. Tom Waits is certainly a magpie but he takes this old base metal and forges something that is indefinably his own. This rare ability is fully recognised by his contemporaries where Elton John has recently hailed Waits as "the Jackson Pollock of song" and Neil Young said of him at Waits induction to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame that 'I will say that this next man is indescribable and I'm here to describe him... this man is a great singer, actor, magician, spirit guide, changeling and performer for you.' After a seven year silence the return of Tom Waits with the truly excellent "Bad of Me" brings a warm feeling and the knowledge that the world has just become a significantly better place.

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Up there with his best October 24, 2011

By Steve Good

Format:Audio CD

Up until now, Rain Dogs, Bone Machine and Mule Variations were my favourite Waits albums - and I love all his work: early and latter, drunk and sober, soft and loud. Bad As Me is right up there with them and might even be better. I won't do a song-by-song analysis - someone will do this way better than me. But all the slower tempo songs are superb, with a few traces of DNA to earlier years (the start of Blue Valentines is repeated). The uptempo songs don't fall into any simple category - there's a great tasty musical stew boiling - including some sounds that haven't been made before by anybody (Hell Broke Luce is Tom at his most brutal and most innovative). So it's sort of like the White Album, but without all the weaker songs. And Keef is on 3 tracks, including a touching duet. How cool is that!

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Let's be grateful for a new Tom album, but realistic November 25, 2011

By Julius Oosthuizen

Format:Audio CD

I've been reading a number of the reviews stating that Tom is a genius, national treasure, tapped into the soul of America, etc. IMHO, all of these things are true, and I think his great works (Rain Dogs, Swordfishtrombones, Mule Variations) are absolute, must have, desert island classics. Sadly, I don't believe that "Bad as Me" ranks up there with any of these works, nor do I think the album deserves the deluge of 5-star ratings being thrown at it.

Undoubtedly a new Tom Waits album is an event, and as aways he manages to say things in his unique fashion. Ironically, however, my problem is that the album's "strengths" highlighted by most of the other reviewers are in fact it's weaknesses, when measured against Tom's previous outputs and his status as our favorite off-beat icon. I agree fully that the songs are tightly-knit - the backing band is packed with luminaries, melodies and arrangements are carefully constructed, and Tom displays just about all of his various vocal persona's through the album. All of this makes for an easily accessible album with catchy hooks, but this isn't what I'm looking for when I sit down to listen to Tom. I can't shake the feeling that we are being treated to something formulaic, with all of the elements we know and love - some quirky instruments, a well-placed howl or growl, the gamut of emotions from rage to despair - being in attendance, but somehow Tom is going through the motions, showing off his skills and smarts, but neither baring his soul nor showing any new insights or musical directions. In many ways, it sounds more like an end-of career retrospective than a new beginning or "return to form".

Maybe I expect too much, but I think some realism is required amongst the idolatry amongst these reviews- this is a solid and polished album, but it is not a great one. It may also be a good introduction for those who don't know Tom's music (could this be possible?), but it doesn't get anywhere near to exposing his real genius.