Blood Money is up there with Waits's best albums from the mid-'80s, veering as it does from sexy insomniac circus music to gorgeously heart-tugging lullabies to woozy zigzag bluesy romps to what can only be described as Oscar the Grouch singing out of tune on top of the soundtrack to an old French film. Blood Money's 13 songs were cowritten by Tom Waits and longtime collaborator and wife Kathleen Brennan for a Robert Wilson production of Georg Büchner's unfinished, protomodernist 1837 play, Woyzeck, about a Kafkaesque German soldier who goes crazy after doing medical experiments for money and kills his girlfriend after witnessing a perceived infidelity. The album's worldview is, necessarily, bleak. The lyrics are hilariously misanthropic, occasionally hallucinatory, and ring with the truth of Tin Pan Alley clichés turned inside out. "Coney Island Baby," in particular, is a grand statement, with Waits delicately croaking the lines "She's a rose, she's the pearl / She's the spin on my world / All the stars make their wishes on her eyes." The album's manifesto, however, is to be found in the title tune, as Waits spits out the words "If there's one thing you can say about mankind / There's nothing kind about man / You can drive out nature with a pitch fork / But it always comes roaring back again." Released at the same time as the lyrical, lovely Alice, the ragged and rhythmic Blood Money marks the return of one of our most gifted meta-singer-songwriters to the top of his game. --Mike McGonigal

Tales From The Underground - Vol. 5, 2000
PMS Records. CID 1505 00. CD, 2000. Various recordings (not authorized by Tom Waits)

Born December 7th. 1949, in Pomona, California. Tom Waits first album, "Closing Time", was released in 1973. A contemporary artist, Waits is mostly known for his lyrical and poetical songwriting and raspy gravelly voice.
His own inspiration is rooted in early blues and beat poetry with influences like Howlin' Wolf and Jack Kerouac. Apart from music, Waits also has a strong presence in movies. He has appeared in works by Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Gilliam, and Robert Altman.

PMS Records: CID 31 1097, 0 14431-1097-1 1. CD, 1997. Under license from Hollywood Inc. (1976-1997 NY & LA studios. Manufactured in Canada). Various recordings (not authorized by Tom Waits)

PMS records, CID 20896. CD, 1996. Various recordings (not authorized by Tom Waits)

The middle album of the trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years, Rain Dogs is Waits's best overall effort. The songs are first-rate, and there are a lot of them--19 in all, ranging from grim nightlife memoirs ("9th and Hennepin," "Singapore") to portraits of small-time hustlers ("Gun Street Girl," "Union Square") to bursts of street-corner philosophy ("Blind Love," "Time"). The album also contains the original version of "Downtown Train," which Rod Stewart turned into a smash hit. The image of "rain dogs"--animals who've lost their way home because the rain has washed away their scent--is an appropriate symbol for the entire cast of characters Waits has brought to life over the years, and this album has thus far proved to be his most enduring effort. --Daniel Durchholz