CD-Charts Position 1
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Rain Dogs

by: Tom Waits

Release Date May 24, 1989
What an album! I have never known two songs hang down your head and time to make me cry! They are two af my fave songs EVER! But the whole album just oozes by wonderfuly! Tom is an amazing geezer and this album rocks from start to finish! BUY IT!!

CD-Charts Position 2
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The Heart Of Saturday Night

by: Tom Waits

Release Date October 01, 1999
Its hard to believe that this album comes from the same artist who performed on "Small Change"; this is more like it. In contradistinction to the desperately awful vocals on that album, Waits is here a mellow-voiced, yet bluesy edged vocalist entirely in tune with some fine piano work and the rest of the musicians, elements largely lost on the earlier album. The songs are finely crafted, elegantly phrased and perhaps ultimately timeless. Comparisons with later Joni Mitchell are not out of place here - think "Hejira" - and in places even Dylan and the Eagles more world weary stuff, but then they all draw from the same well, so perhaps it's not so surprising. Thoroughly recommended to almost anyone with a taste for the eclectic. So I look forward to more ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
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Closing Time

by: Tom Waits

Release Date October 01, 1999
I first heard "RainDogs" in the 1980's. We probably have most of Tom Waits' albums now. "Closing Time" remains an absolute classic and is highly recommended.. some plaintive tracks backed by piano and, of course, thoughtful lyrics and a great voice. I like his later albums too, but this is much more mellow. There isn't one bad song on the album, and that's why I rate it a "classic".

I just can't understand some of the negative listings on here... "almost a demo.. an album 'our' tom would prefer to forget." I just don't get it. It takes all sorts, really.

This is a great album

CD-Charts Position 4
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Small Change

by: Tom Waits

Release Date October 01, 1999
I came to Waits music via Duke Robillards excellent cover of "Low Side of the Road" and on the back of this I bought "Small Change", further encouraged by the reviews here. Waits is a fine wordsmith, his lyrics quirky and atmospheric. He may also be a decent pianist too, but the voice was too much of a distraction. However it has to be said that the guy simply cannot sing, unless that is one counts the sound of a chain harrow being dragged over granite rubble as singing. It also sounds contrived, rather than natural, like the guy is creating his own myth.Frankly I found it painful and embarassing to listen to and I think most other people would too. As someone who is a fan of Howling Wolf, Robert Maxwell, Lightning Hopkins, Link Wray etc. and other gravel voiced ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
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Frank's Wild Years

by: Tom Waits

Release Date May 24, 1989
The thing I like about Tom Waits is his songs are little movies. So it is impossible to hear Innocent When You Dream (a particularly good song on this album) without seeing barroom grotesques, squeezing tears from their faces as they howl out the tune. And of course the irony of a beautiful, delicate lyric being throttled by these Tom Waits reprobates is just perfect.

One other thing I like about Mr T is that he 'acts' his songs. Therefore no matter how heartfelt, angry or etc the song, there is always a bit of tongue in the cheek, a bit of burlesque, a little twinkle in the eye. Therefore none of the rock star posturing of his peers, because there's just a touch of silliness and absurdity to it all, no matter how genuinely heartfelt.

By the ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
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Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

by: Tom Waits

Release Date December 18, 2006
Here Tom Waits has the audacity to
attempt to better Bob Dylan's Modern
Times as Album of The Year 2006.
- and he's darned near succeeded.
Listen to it sober and it's brilliant
listen to it drunk and it's sublime.

CD-Charts Position 7
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Swordfishtrombones

by: Tom Waits

Release Date May 24, 1989
You know from the first track this is going to be a special album. Mental songs (Underground); heartbreakers (Soldier's Things; Town With No Cheer); instrumentals that speak (Rainbirds); even the obligatory teeth-gritter it would be churlish to deny Tom Waits after all the hard work he's put in on the other tracks (Dave the Butcher).

Every home should own at least one copy

CD-Charts Position 8
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Nighthawks At The Diner

by: Tom Waits

Release Date October 01, 1999
This is no background music CD. Stick this on and be ready for the atmosphere to seep out of the speakers. It's the early hours in a small bar with an audience intimately gathered around a stage featuring Tom Waits and friends, and you're asked to sit down and listen in too. There are songs, stories and jokes a plenty delivered in brilliant fashion throughout. The measure of this is in a song like 'Putnam County', which amazingly has me feeling homesick for a place I know nothing about. There's no need to worry about wasting your money on this - genius at work.

CD-Charts Position 9
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Heartattack and Vine

by: Tom Waits

Release Date May 10, 1993
You might remember, some years ago now, a bizarre Levi's advert with a funeral procession in it and a strange blues track that begins 'Liar Liar, your pants on fire'. That was a Screaming Jay Hawkins cover of the Tom waits track 'Heart Attack and Vine'. An absolutely fantastic white trash blues ramble that pretty much sums up this album.

If 'The Heart of Saturday Night' is the sound of a down-and-out pulling it all together for a late night performance in a jazz club, this is the sound of the morning after. The art work on the cd features Tom Waits' face on a yellowing newspaper and the music sounds like that of someone who has just woken up on a park bench wrapped in this newspaper. It's downbeat blues with the vocals of someone really trying to shake off their hangover. ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
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Alice

by: Tom Waits

Release Date May 06, 2002
The ideas of lust, obsession, innocence and regret are explored throughout in Alice, a lush and surreal fever dream of an album that manages to tie in nicely with that other, similarly minded theatrical outing Blood Money, as well as elements of the earlier opus Frank's Wild Years, by once again attempting the conceptual thing. Here, amidst the lo-fi production techniques and a minimal wash of jazz-tinged instrumentation, Waits and his wife and co-writer Kathleen Brennan ruminate on the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and its roots within the obsessive, and possibly even dangerous relationship between the author Lewis Carroll, and his young muse Alice Liddell.

Like Blood Money, Alice opts for a non-linear song-cycle; suggesting stories through snatches of surreal ... Read More: