Tom Waits - Bad As Me album review

When you are the same age as modern blues crooner Tom Waits (sixty one in case you were wondering) and releasing your 17^th studio album, you can afford to take things easy and stick at what you are good at and what you know. He still sings like an old man with a 60-a-day smoking habit and a throat infection and I love him for it.

Waits’ latest album is like an introduction to his best bits. It is the sort of album you can hand to someone who may have never heard a Waits song before and be safe in the knowledge that they will soon become a converted fan. All Waits is on this album is the romantic, the misery and the feeling of what music should be. He’s good at playing the hurt and broken man despite having the love of a good woman.

the stand out track for me Sisatisfied. It takes its cue from the well-known Rolling Stones track, where Waits demands the same satisfaction. Now Mr Jagger! And Mr Richards! I will scratch where I been itching! he sings while the Stones guitarist plays along on his guitar. Having already appeared as a guest on previous Waits albums, Richards lends a hand on four songs on this album too.

Bad As Me is, as always with Tom Waits’ offerings, an album full of empathy, antagonism and sorrow – the sort of stuff that puts Waits in the same league as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley.

The album’s 13 tracks does its job as entertaining Tom Waits fans but also does well at alerting a new generation that Waits’ music is out there to enjoy and there are few like him out there.

Buy it Tom Waits - Bad As Me