Stereophile Magazine Record to Die For! 

I first heard Tom Waits's wit and gravel in 1976, on the way to a Rick Derringer/Foghat concert a friend had invited me to at the last minute. In the back seat of my friend's older brother's car, which I was not old enough to drive, I sat drinking Bud tall boys. "The Piano Has Been Drinking" caught my ear, tickled my brain, and served as my introduction to a lifelong love affair with Waits's music. And it wasn't just about music. It was about escaping a suffocating insipid sameness perhaps best expressed by Rick Derringer's performance of "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" later that evening. Waits's Small Change offered hope, humor, and dreams.

Fast-forward twenty-odd years to Mule Variations, for which Waits corralled all of the voices he'd picked up, screeching some through a megaphone like a carnival barker offering depraved salvation. Marc Ribot, Charlie Musselwhite, and a host of other great players help move the music forward as Waits stomps around exploring some of his favorite haunts: religion, paranoia, love, loss, telling all his stories with glee, melancholy, doom, and, ultimately, redemption. "Come down off the cross. We can use the wood. Come on up to the house." Stereophile

1. Big In Japan