Tom Waits
Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years
Island Records

Greatest hits packages and career retrospectives are a dime a dozen
these days (see Lennon: Legend). Often, they are put together by
record executives long after the artist has left their label, and
sometimes long after the artist's death, simply to capitalize on a
buzz or create a new one where the glory is fading. That's why it's
refreshing, almost startling, when a package is actually relevant
and worthwhile.

Leave it to Tom Waits to bust this norm. He apparently had a hand in
picking the songs that make up Beautiful Maladies. None of these
songs was a hit, by industry standards. In fact, the day any Tom
Waits' versions of these songs hits top forty radio, the seventh
seal will break and we will all drop into hell to pay for
Bananaramas and Corey Harts. I have to specify Waits' versions in
this because one, "Downtown Train," was a hit for Rod Stewart. Waits
never cracked the charts with it, but comparing the version on this
album with Stewart's is like comparing Little Richard's version of
"Tutti Frutti" to Pat Boone's version. The only thing Stewart shares
with the Brooklyn girls in the song is probably hair spray.

Then again, from his honky-tonk and barfly crooner days to his
darker, more dramatic albums, Waits has always set himself far from
the mainstream. He has run quite a show from the peripheral, never
disappointing those who chose to venture off into his world. Les
Claypool considers Waits an idol. The Ramones recorded "I Don't
Wanna Grow Up," and a bevy of alternative artists recorded his work
on Step Right Up, a Tom Waits tribute album. Hell, he even hung out
with Jack Nicholson in Ironweed. Not too many artists could weave in
and out of these worlds comfortably. But Tom Waits never seems out
of his element.

Waits' work with Island was some of his most critically acclaimed
and adventurous. He produced seven albums in about as many years,
including Swordfishtrombones, The Black Rider, and Big Time. Big
Time, and the video that accompanied it, arguable brought Waits as
close to popular as he may ever get. He was in movie theatres and
getting raves from people who had probably never heard him sing
before. The Black Rider was an opera he actually scripted and
performed in New York, a twisted German cabaret that makes Joel
Grey's Emcee look like an altar boy.

It's difficult to describe a compilation where every song is
different, except to say that it sums up Tom Waits' time with Island
perfectly. "Johnsburg, Illinois" is a love song, short and sweet,
packing more story into thirteen lines than most of Waits'
contemporaries could manage on a double album. Waits shows his knack
for creating abstract locales on "Singapore" and "Underground." He
harkens back to his jazzier days on "Frank's Wild Years," spoken
more than sung. And it's nearly impossible to listen to "Strange
Weather" or "Cold, Cold Ground" without bonding to their
down-on-their-luck narrators in some way.

True, Waits isn't for everyone. His gravely, Satchmo growl is an
acquired taste, and there is a disturbing preponderance of German
dwarfs populating his landscapes. That's as deep as a lot of
listeners are willing to go. But if you go a little further, you'll
be rewarded with the work of a wonderful poet and a gifted
musician. Beautiful Maladies is a good place to start.

-Nick