Includes FREE MP3
version
of this album.
or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Bad As Me

Tom WaitsVinyl
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (104 customer reviews)

Price: $24.98 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
  Special Offers Available
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
 : Includes FREE MP3 version of this album.
   Provided by Amazon Digital Services, Inc. Terms and Conditions. Does not apply to gift orders.
Only 2 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Friday, June 21? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Complete your purchase to save the MP3 version to Cloud Player.

Is this a gift? This item ships in its own packaging. To keep the contents concealed, select This will be a gift during checkout.
Bad As Me on vinyl does not include a full-size twelve page book or a CD of the album.

Amazon's Tom Waits Store

Music

Image of album by Tom Waits

Photos

Image of Tom Waits

Videos

Tom Waits and Keith Richards from SON OF ROGUES GALLERY

Biography

Tom Waits, according to the esteemed American critic Robert Hilburn, is “clearly one of the most important figures of the modern pop era.” Such sentiments are not mere hyperbole; in a career that now spans four decades and over 20 albums, Tom Waits has emerged as an extraordinary innovative force, a singular voice whose music remains determinedly—and even ... Read more in Amazon's Tom Waits Store

Visit Amazon's Tom Waits Store
for 78 albums, 7 photos, videos, and 1 full streaming song.

Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Buy a CD or a vinyl record, get a $1 Amazon MP3 Credit. Limit one promotional credit per customer. Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Includes FREE MP3 version of this album Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Check Out Our Turntable Store
    Need a new record player? Check out our turntable store for a great selection of turntables, needles, accessories, and more.

Frequently Bought Together

Bad As Me + Mule Variations + Rain Dogs
Price for all three: $44.43

Buy the selected items together
  • Mule Variations $11.96
  • Rain Dogs $7.49

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product Details

  • Vinyl (October 24, 2011)
  • Number of Discs: 2
  • Label: Epitaph
  • ASIN: B005IGVZX2
  • 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: #86,798 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

1. Chicago
2. Raised Right Men
3. Talking At The Same Time
4. Get Los
5. Face To The Highway
6. Pay Me
7. Back In The Crowd
8. Bad As Me
9. Kiss Me
10. Satisfied
11. Last Leaf
12. Hell Broke Luce
13. New Year's Eve

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.


Customer Reviews

My favorite song on the album. D. Keene  |  8 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
102 of 114 people found the following review helpful
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".
... Read more ›
Was this review helpful to you?
35 of 40 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Up there with his best October 24, 2011
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!
Was this review helpful to you?
43 of 51 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
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".
... Read more ›
Was this review helpful to you?
51 of 65 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars This Album Is CHOICE, Baby! October 24, 2011
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
If I can work it, this is the way I find out if we're gonna be pals: I toss a Tom Waits cd in the machine and I watch your reaction. If you make a face and say, "What's this?", we aren't gonna make it. If your eyes turn to pinwheels and you say something like "Buh, buh, buh..." I'll give you whatever you want. Once a friend of mine, when we were listening to "Lie to Me" from Tom's album ORPHANS said, "Don't you think this is what music should be?" I laughed because it was one of the truest things I'd ever heard. "Yes I do," I said. And that's exactly how I feel about BAD AS ME.

This is the kind of music that'll dry your mouth out and make you thirsty for more. We've always needed Tom Waits to show us what music really is: vibrations just under the skin that warm the blood and make the heart grow. And we'll always need Tom Waits to remind us of that. I can become very desperate for his music. I am much less desperate today.

Buy. This. Album.
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars ok
I have all Tom Waits albums. This one is not his best. I still love Tom! Looking forward to his next one.
Published 1 month ago by matilda2
5.0 out of 5 stars Tom Waits is a musical god
I am bias, I admit. I love Tom Waits and don't even know the guy. His music is among my favorites, it is rough, fresh, sometimes frustrating, and always a new experience well... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Gary
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the money
I have most of Tom Waits albums. I would rate this as one of my favorites along with small change.
Published 1 month ago by TONY FITZSIMMONS
5.0 out of 5 stars Tom Waits as expected
This was a gift for my husband, but I love this record. A true poet along the Bukowski lines with music added. Love the cd and would highly recommend it. Read more
Published 2 months ago by V. L. Hayden
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!!!
You will need this if you love Tom Waits!!! Great CD!! Thanks Amazon for a great price and fast shipping!!! You can listen to this one over and over....
Published 3 months ago by Jenifer E. Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!
Bad as me both met and exceeded my expectations because Tom waits is awesome. :-) My son's comments as it was a gift for him.
Published 4 months ago by spades
2.0 out of 5 stars Older Work is Better
Tom Waits is an acquired taste but in the end I think his older stuff is better than albums like this, his newer work. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Trevor
5.0 out of 5 stars Waits gets better and better.
Waits is brilliant! With Bad as Me, he has put it all together. It is his best effort and his greatest contribution.
Published 5 months ago by Rob Merrifield
1.0 out of 5 stars Man,this guy can't sing.
I had a friend years ago,recommend that I get one of Tom Waits' CDs.At a local Harmony House I bought one. Read more
Published 5 months ago by SideshowBob
4.0 out of 5 stars Tom Waits
The songs are creative, sad, and intense. This album is worth listening to. Love the descriptors and the visuals. w
Published 6 months ago by Micaiah T Shultz
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Forums

Topic From this Discussion
Where is my cd/digital download that comes with the vinyl?
I had the same problem. It's really irritating because while I enjoy having the vinyl, I only get the vinyl when there's also a digital download included. I noticed in Anti's merch store, the version they are selling comes with a download. I'm going to complain to them.
Jan 14, 2012 by Matt Sedlar |  See all 2 posts
Have something you'd like to share about this product?
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions



What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?



Look for Similar Items by Category