BAD AS ME

As the great philosopher Gregory House once said, "Anybody can hate humanity after getting shot. Takes a big man to hate it beforehand." I'm not talking about Tom Waits, I'm talking about me because, to paraphrase, anybody can dig great music, but it takes a special kind of man to get bored with it. I mean, it's Tom Waits, okay? he can't really screw up, can he? The man has never put out a bad album. You can prefer some and skip others, but there's really no bad music on any of them.

But I'm special.

I am bored with him being so great and perfect. And, while Bad As Me is a good album, it's not his best. I want him to fuck it up big time, I want to listen to Tom's Nocturama. If he never fucks up, things just get boring. If every album he makes is gonna be above average (by his standards - which means "fucking amazing" for nearly everybody else) and since Tom always sounds like Tom, well then, where's the surprise? Good and better songs will keep on coming, but, since that's become a norm in his case, I kinda feel the need for either extreme: his best or his worst. Something to stand out.This album has maybe three songs that stand out a little: "Chicago", "Raised Right Man" and of course "Bad As Me", which I'm not gonna put up here cause everybody else will. The rest are either Tom Waits leaves-in-the-wind kind of songs or Tom Waits big-throat-bark kind of songs. The instrumentation is what you'd expect: stomping, clapping and the blues, you know the drill. No big experiment here. And maybe it's my fault for always needing one. What's wrong with me, really?

So, yeah sure, I am impressed, but, again, by his standards (and mine) this is a work of average genius.

Tom Waits - Chicago