The Essential Tom Waits
I've recently finished a complete listen through of every Tom Waits album, and compiled, what I believe to be, a playlist of his essential tracks. Not my top 3 from each album, or my favorite albums in order, just a playlist of not only the best of his best, but which also (I believe) paints a broad listening experience of his various styles. I didn't set any rules for myself, except that I wanted to be fairly choosey, not push myself to at least one song from each album, and that I was going to skip the (true) live albums, to avoid repetitions and keep it slightly more streamlined, not that they aren't good.
The final track per album come came out like this:
Closing Time - 5
The Heart of Saturday Night - 4
Nighthawks at the Diner - 4 (plus 2 intros)
Small Change - 5
Foreign Affairs - 2
Blue Valentine - 3
Heartattack and Vine - 3
One from the Heart Soundtrack - 1
Swordfishtrombones - 6
Rain Dogs - 7
Frank's Wild Years - 4
Night on Earth - 0
Bone Machine - 9
The Black Rider - 2
Mule Variations - 9
Blood Money - 4
Alice - 3
Real Gone - 6
Brawlers - 5
Bawlers - 2
Bastards - 3
Bad As Me - 3
A few notes
- I included certain intros on Nighthawks that I believe are particularly great at setting the ambiance for the song, but didn't include them in the count. If i listen to this on shuffle it will be a challenge but oh well, I'd consider them part of the actual song.
- Just because a song is left off, doesn't mean I don't like it, I tried to force myself to be choosy
- Just because certain albums have more songs doesn't necessarily mean I like them more than others. For example I think Alice is a better album when listened too as a whole than Blood Money, BM just has more standouts. I feel the same about Swordfishtrombones over Mule Variations.
I'm curious to see what people think of this as an essential list. A lot of my friends are only moderate Wait's fans at best. Curious to see which not so obvious ones people think I nailed, or more likely, what travesties I committed by omission. If you hate lists like this, feel free to tell me to fuck off.