"Blood Money" or "Alice" Hmmmm. Well I liked "Blood Money" better, but if you caught me in a melancholy mood I might prefer "Alice" instead. "Blood Money" shows off Tom Waits's strengths as a writer and composer (and heck, yeah, a singer!) All I got from my girlfriend was, "You can't really listen to this and enjoy it can you?" Well certainly. If you like your music world weary and forlorn, "Blood Money" and Tom Waits are right on target. "If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man." To me, that's right on target in "Misery Is The River Of The World" and hey, why not follow it up with "Everything Goes To Hell", "God's Away On Business", "Another Man's Vine", "Knife Chase" and "Starving In The Belly Of The Whale" for added pleasure. Waits is never afraid to take a keen look into the soul of man, and here he finds deceit, dishonesty, longing, depression, jealousy, regret. Musically, "Blood Money" is a mixture of jazz/blues/ragtime--the kind of stuff you'd hear in a smokey bar after hours. I liked "Blood Money" so much, that I'd put it up there with "Bone Machine", "Swordfishtrombones", "Rain Dogs", "Frank's Wild Years", "Small Change" and "Closing Time". If you are a Waits fan, this should easily satisfy.

Tom Waits is a man of many voices and on Blood Money he summons the un-usual cast of characters. He is typically at his tenderest in a waltz, but on this album pessimism and depression pervade. There are waltzes but he uses them in a different fashion, from the sinister carousel-from-hell interlude in the opening track to the denial of tenderness in Another Man's Vine and The Part You Throw Away. There is depth here and I find more with each listening. Here is a distillation of the songs:

Misery Is The River Of The World - After six shots of tequila, the Cookie Monster vents about 25 years with someone's hand up his a**.

Everything Goes To Hell - What a different movie Aladdin would be if Jafar sang the opening title.

Coney Island Baby - A simple love song about the girl of one's dreams... literally.

All The World Is Green - What good is all this beauty around your gravestone, dear?

God's Away On Business - Jimmy Durante as a jaded, syphilitic Pangloss.

Another Man's Vine - Scornful coveting by an embittered have-not.

Knife Chase (Instrumental) - Trapped in a house of mirrors and the lights go out... who's there?

Lullaby - One of Waits' tenderest melodies. Shut out the bleak waking world, child.

Starving In The Belly Of A Whale - It's Rawhide with a Marine drill instructor exhorting the wagon train onward with his customary compassion.

The Part You Throw Away - Life... what a waste.

Woe - At first glance this is a sweet love song about going out dancing with your girl. But, whoa, the title and the dirge-like tempo turn it into something else. Is this a bereaved old man at the open casket of his late wife?

Calliope (Instrumental) - Disturbing bed-spins between inebriation and unconsciousness.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find - If Billie Holiday were alive today she'd be 90 and croaking her way through this jaunty number.

I firmly believe that someone above (or within, or whatever) is holding me back from hearing certain artists until they know I'm ready. I've heard the name Tom Waits in many places for many years but it wasn't until this year when I was walking around a local Sam Goody, of all places, that I actually heard the man. It took only a couple of listens of Bloody Money for him to draw me into a more atmoshperic and artistic version of the dark carnival that the Insane Clown Posse have been promising me for years. Tom barks more than he sings and he writes words that could not be performed as perfectly by anyone else. Of the two albums he released this year I find that Blood Money only beats the more tortoisetic Alice by a hair. Even with his distinct sound, the albums are quite literally as different as night and day-- although I would be hard pressed to say which was which. From songs like Misery's The River Of The World and God's Away On Buisness from Blood Money to Alice from Alice, Tom paints a landscape that you will enjoy wandering around again and again. This is an artist whose collection I plan on delving much deeper into in the coming years.

Tom Waits... There is something to be said about an artist that I specifically put on at full volume on Halloween to scare children, and who's music I find so moving that at times it brings me to tears. That somewhat describes the artist that is Tom Waits. This year, he followed up 1999's Mule Variations with TWO new albums of music. Alice and Blood Money, although complimentary, are two separate and fantastic albums. Alice has a fantastical and fictional feel - as if Through the Looking-Glass met with Where the Wild Things Are; a peek into a world where things are not as they seem and the characters lurking inside are as fascinating as they are freakish. Tracks like, "Table-Top Joe" and "We're All Mad Here" compliment the freakish side, while the wistful and sad numbers like "Barcarolle" and "Fish and Bird" shows the true beauty of the wonderland that Waits has created. Blood Money, on the other hand, is like a trip to hell carefully narrated and brought to life by Waits' voice, lyrics and instrumentation. With tracks like, "God's Away On Business" and "Everything Goes to Hell," it's pretty easy to find yourself trapped on Waits' demonic calliope. Both albums offer a glimpse of Waits as frightfully fantastic and humbly sincere.

I just saw Wilson's (& Waits's) version of "Woyzeck" last night. I am definitely buying the cd. The music made the production. I've directed Woyzeck and I still use it in my script analysis class. I couldn't imagine more fitting, engagingly dissonant and juxtaposed music. It really captures all the forces at work on the person of Woyzeck. The music makes the drama. Even if you didn't see the show, you can take the journey through Waits's music.