My review of Tom Waits' Bad as Me

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   Bad as Me – 2011

13/15 (4.5 out of 5 rounded up) – Best Song: Last Leaf or Bad as Me or New Year’s Eve

I’ve been in a slump of late. It’s not that all music is
dead, I think. It’s just that so much of it seems downright appallingly
derivative and unimaginative these days. So I awaited the release of Waits’
2011 album with much bated breath. I figured that, coming off the high of the
sprawling, generous, disjointed, Rain-Dog-Encyclopedia Orphans box, that he’d
be more concise, and true to that he was. Bad as Me could plausibly be
considered his most ‘homely’ album. It’s certainly not short of wonders, but
they seem geared toward one primary, singular spirit. 

It’d be an atrocious mistake to call any album from this page
as a ‘genre’ album, but if I had to, I’d say that this was Tom’s hardcore blues
album. Most of the ‘voices’ are apparent – the audacious back-alley brawler,
the apocalyptic falsetto, the drunk-and-disorderly shipmate with naught but
hopes and a picture from home in the moon, and the roaring psychopath, but it’s
all fitted so snugly into the blues paradigm. Of course it’s not so simple,
with Spanish Tinge mariachi, rumbling dirt gospels, and the ever-present Folk. The raucous title
track reminded me of Big In Japan with a severely cynical twist, and ‘Pay Me’
is a lullaby on similar caliber grounds as Innocent When You Dream. It’s not
that he’s regressing or stuck in his past, but he’s a man that assuredly
appreciates where he’s come from without sullying his nostalgic reverie with a
bunch of creampuff Caspar Milquetoast silliness and gimmick. It’s
straight-forward. Its short, polar opposite of Real Gone, which was his final
gasp of sprawl (no excess!). 

The midst of the record, from Pay Me, then led on into ‘Back
in the Crowd’, with the sentimental acoustic raindrop palette, and the vicious
title song is where you’ll find the easiest access. No, we won’t find any
harbored pop singles or anything. A voice, a writer like this is practically
incorrigible – I’d hate it any differently. ‘No good you say? Heh, well that’s
good enough for me.’ Oh, the Throat hasn’t degraded one bit. Been alive for
more than sixty years and still practically able to split the heavens with a
cantankerous howl, it is. Keith Richards played and sang on there in ‘Satisfied' and a couple other places I think, but it’s not a trick or a joke. ‘Kiss Me’ is
sweet, never saccharine, and sounds like it’s bleeding out of your old 1960’s
cassette deck or in the juke dives. It’s dirty, purposefully, and filled up
with that authentic romance everybody knows but the television sets just never
show. 

It’s hot, crowded, and sweaty. It’s chilly, dust-cluttered,
and dripping mucus. It’s inwardly groping, yet outwardly stumbling. It’ll wipe
its nose on your pretty new fashion shirt sleeves, and it’ll borrow your beat-up
Monte Carlo without asking. That’s the bleary force that cracks against you in
Bad as Me. As he simply knows how to do, each song is as jarringly loud or as
disconcertingly quiet as it needs to be. ‘Last Leaf’ could, under the proper
circumstances as I’ve been so wont to proclaim, lead one to bouts of tears.

‘Hell Broke Luce’ is the one and only Avant-Garde eruption
of slurred suicide-bomb raving. It’s a statement about the war. He hasn't been
one for obnoxious political pandering, so don’t expect any heartfelt niceties.
It’s hard-edged and hateful. It’s to the point. The song is delivered as if the
entire band suffered from shellshock (none of them weasel words for us!). When
I was over there I never got to vote. I left my arm in my coat. My mom died and
she never wrote. We sat by the fire and ate a goat. Just before he died he had
a toke. Now I’m home and I’m blind and I’m broke. What’s next? Well, never one
to leave his fans hanging on to the edge without a hope, he takes the gilded
staircase up to the sun and asks the man, can you spare but a drop? See we’re
so very hungry and we’re so very thirsty and you’re up at the top. The sun
replies – I’ll give you what you want, but it won’t fix things. ‘New Years Eve’
is that little drop. It’s where the whole damn world’s broke to bits,
and ain’t nary a man happy, but I’ll be damned if they don’t strike up a chorus
of auld lang syne, anyway. I’d be clichéd and call it the best album of the
year, but that’s easy. It’s probably the best studio album released in the past
half decade by anybody. 

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Alitare Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: March 08 2008 Location: New York Status: Offline Points: 3595	Topic: My review of Tom Waits' Bad as Me Posted: October 18 2011 at 17:26
	Bad as Me – 2011 13/15 (4.5 out of 5 rounded up) – Best Song: Last Leaf or Bad as Me or New Year’s Eve I’ve been in a slump of late. It’s not that all music is dead, I think. It’s just that so much of it seems downright appallingly derivative and unimaginative these days. So I awaited the release of Waits’ 2011 album with much bated breath. I figured that, coming off the high of the sprawling, generous, disjointed, Rain-Dog-Encyclopedia Orphans box, that he’d be more concise, and true to that he was. Bad as Me could plausibly be considered his most ‘homely’ album. It’s certainly not short of wonders, but they seem geared toward one primary, singular spirit. It’d be an atrocious mistake to call any album from this page as a ‘genre’ album, but if I had to, I’d say that this was Tom’s hardcore blues album. Most of the ‘voices’ are apparent – the audacious back-alley brawler, the apocalyptic falsetto, the drunk-and-disorderly shipmate with naught but hopes and a picture from home in the moon, and the roaring psychopath, but it’s all fitted so snugly into the blues paradigm. Of course it’s not so simple, with Spanish Tinge mariachi, rumbling dirt gospels, and the ever-present Folk. The raucous title track reminded me of Big In Japan with a severely cynical twist, and ‘Pay Me’ is a lullaby on similar caliber grounds as Innocent When You Dream. It’s not that he’s regressing or stuck in his past, but he’s a man that assuredly appreciates where he’s come from without sullying his nostalgic reverie with a bunch of creampuff Caspar Milquetoast silliness and gimmick. It’s straight-forward. Its short, polar opposite of Real Gone, which was his final gasp of sprawl (no excess!). The midst of the record, from Pay Me, then led on into ‘Back in the Crowd’, with the sentimental acoustic raindrop palette, and the vicious title song is where you’ll find the easiest access. No, we won’t find any harbored pop singles or anything. A voice, a writer like this is practically incorrigible – I’d hate it any differently. ‘No good you say? Heh, well that’s good enough for me.’ Oh, the Throat hasn’t degraded one bit. Been alive for more than sixty years and still practically able to split the heavens with a cantankerous howl, it is. Keith Richards played and sang on there in ‘Satisfied' and a couple other places I think, but it’s not a trick or a joke. ‘Kiss Me’ is sweet, never saccharine, and sounds like it’s bleeding out of your old 1960’s cassette deck or in the juke dives. It’s dirty, purposefully, and filled up with that authentic romance everybody knows but the television sets just never show. It’s hot, crowded, and sweaty. It’s chilly, dust-cluttered, and dripping mucus. It’s inwardly groping, yet outwardly stumbling. It’ll wipe its nose on your pretty new fashion shirt sleeves, and it’ll borrow your beat-up Monte Carlo without asking. That’s the bleary force that cracks against you in Bad as Me. As he simply knows how to do, each song is as jarringly loud or as disconcertingly quiet as it needs to be. ‘Last Leaf’ could, under the proper circumstances as I’ve been so wont to proclaim, lead one to bouts of tears. ‘Hell Broke Luce’ is the one and only Avant-Garde eruption of slurred suicide-bomb raving. It’s a statement about the war. He hasn't been one for obnoxious political pandering, so don’t expect any heartfelt niceties. It’s hard-edged and hateful. It’s to the point. The song is delivered as if the entire band suffered from shellshock (none of them weasel words for us!). When I was over there I never got to vote. I left my arm in my coat. My mom died and she never wrote. We sat by the fire and ate a goat. Just before he died he had a toke. Now I’m home and I’m blind and I’m broke. What’s next? Well, never one to leave his fans hanging on to the edge without a hope, he takes the gilded staircase up to the sun and asks the man, can you spare but a drop? See we’re so very hungry and we’re so very thirsty and you’re up at the top. The sun replies – I’ll give you what you want, but it won’t fix things. ‘New Years Eve’ is that little drop. It’s where the whole damn world’s broke to bits, and ain’t nary a man happy, but I’ll be damned if they don’t strike up a chorus of auld lang syne, anyway. I’d be clichéd and call it the best album of the year, but that’s easy. It’s probably the best studio album released in the past half decade by anybody.