release date: May 4, 2002
format: cd (6629-2)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan
label: ANTI- - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Misery Is the River of the World" - 5. "God's Away on Business" (official video) - 9. "Starving in the Belly of a Whale" - 13. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
14th studio album by Tom Waits is his music to the play "Woyzech" [an album title Waits rejected as he apparently thought noone would know who that was, and Brennan suggested "Blood Money", 'cause that's what the play is basically about], which premiered at Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen, Nov. 2000. The album is released simultaneously with the album Alice both written, composed and produced by Tom Waits and (wife) Kathleen Brennan.
Stylistically, the music doesn't add new angles nor new elements to the music by Waits but it emphasises his experimental cabaret music, which seems to lean on the music by Kurt Weill, and while the songs themselves are not bad, they simply sound like pieces you've heard before.
Comparing the album to Alice this appears more angry and masculine as a person's wry position to all the bad things about the world.
[ allmusic.com, The Guardian, Q Magazine 4 / 5, NME, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5 stars ]
