What can I say about Tom Waits that hasn’t already been said. An incredibly prolific songwriter of Avant-garde and strangely beautiful jazz (and I use jazz lightly).
I put Alice and Blood Money together because seem to be from the same mold. Alice is contains songs written for a play of the same name. The play is tail of forbidden love between Lewis Carrol and Alice Liddell, for whom he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Each song tells it’s own story and each song has a unique flavor. From the title track to alluringly tragic Flower’s Grave to the volkstümliche musik inspired Kommienezuspadt, each song on Alice leads the listener on a ride through the looking glass.
Blood Money is also contains songs for a play. This one is an adaptation of the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner. Where Alice mournful and languishing, Blood Money has a dour and surly feel to it. The production on Blood Money does not seem as polished as Alice which adds to it’s ambiance.
Out of Tom Wait’s double aut album’s these two are my favorite and they are two of my favorite albums of the decade.
