CD Odyssey Disc 90: Tom Waits

It has been exactly 50 discs since I last rolled Tom Waits - way back last October. Here he is again.

Disc 90 is...Big Time


Artist: Tom Waits

Year of Release: 1988

How I Came To Know It: I discovered Tom Waits originally through the album Closing Time, which I reviewed back at Disc 40. Sheila bought this particular album, as I don't typically go for live albums (although there are exceptions).

How It Stacks Up: We have a lot of Tom Waits - 16 studio albums in fact, plus Big Time, which is a live album. I don't think you can properly 'stack up' a live album against a studio album, so I'll defer on this one. It is kind of like a "best of" that way.

Rating: 3 stars.

"Big Time" is a live album that primarily covers Tom Waits' work from about 1980 through 1987. It contains mostly songs from 1985's "Rain Dogs" and 1987's "Frank's Wild Years", with a smattering of some stuff from earlier in the decade, off of "Swordfishtrombone" and "Heart Attack and Vine".

It is a golden age for Waits; a period where he broke out of more traditional sounding blues/folk groove of the seventies and started to incorporate all manner of weird instruments and arrangements. I call it his "circus" period, because the music all has a distinct big-top feel to it.

I quite like the period, and "Rain Dogs" and "Frank's Wild Years" are two of my favourite albums. The problem with "Big Time" is that it seems to lack the continuity of those two studio albums. By it's very nature, it jumps around from album to album. The songs are good, but they are better in their original format.

I will say that Waits' songs are strong enough to stand on their own, regardless of how they are compiled, and this album has many classics, including "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six", "Cold Cold Ground", "Way Down in the Hole" (recently expertly remade by Steve Earle), "Big Black Mariah" and a slough of others.

There are probably a few TOO many classics, though - with 18 songs, this album took two full rides home from work to get through it, and there were places where I could have made a cut. 18 songs is too many, even for a live album.

For the most part, I would start out excited about these killer songs (admirably performed by Waits in a live format) but I found myself wanting to hear the studio albums they were taken off of, rather than in this format. Not that Waits wouldn't be great live - this album clearly shows he would be - I just had a hankerin' for the studio tracks.

So in the end, I give this album 3 stars on the strength of the songs, but if you like it, I would suggest you go buy "Rain Dogs" and "Frank's Wild Years" instead. You'll have 11 of the 18 tracks right there, and a bunch of other good ones besides.

Best tracks: For sheer live power, I'd go 16 Shells From a Thirty Ought Six, Big Black Mariah and Clap Hands.