release date: Jun. 1998
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan
label: Island Records - nationality: USA
Best of compilation by Tom Waits released on Island Records AFTER he had left the label and signed with the small independent label, ANTI-.
The album contains 23 tracks taken from seven albums released over a decade starting with his '83 album Swordfishtrombones through to The Black Rider from '93.
It's hard to say anything sensible about the chosen order of tracks - which may seem to be a slightly randomised, but the chosen tracks as such are excellent in representing his musical heritage and the period while on Island Records. The easiest thing is to point to the songs that are not here - for example "In the Neighborhood", "Soldier's Thing", "Train Song", "Goin' Out West", but as highlighted material from a decade boiled down to a single cd issue, it does work as a fine selection.
