Top Five Tom Waits Albums
(I appreciate every phase of his career—if I rounded this list out to ten, it would include both his earliest album and his most recent—but I have a marked preference, it would seem, for his rebirth era: the racket-making and woozy balladeering of the eighties. Here, in order of preference, are my top five.)
Rain Dogs
Swordfishtrombones
Franks Wild Years
Small Change
Nighthawks on the Radio: Live 14th December 1976 (KNEW-FM)
— February 11, 2021