release date: Nov. 20, 2006
format: cd (3-disc box set)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5]
producer: Kathleen Brennan, Tom Waits
label: ANTI- - nationality: USA
A compilation album, and there's some when a man has made music very consistently for four decades. This is not the usual Best of kind of release. First thing that differs is that it's a box set of 3 discs. Well, that should maybe do it in comprising his long career but that's not really the way it has been compiled. Apparently, Waits had wanted a release with some of the songs that had been left out of albums throughout the years and he intended to make a slow ballad-like disc of all his softer songs and a raw and ferocious disc with his energetic complementary side, but then Brennan came up with the idea of three discs 'cause they also needed room for the ones that didn't fit either of the two labels. So the songs are intentionally placed according to style and temper, so that the first disc of "Brawlers" are tracks that rock. They are his blues rock and most poignant rock tunes. The second disc of "Bawlers" is a collection of singer / songwriter ballads and vocal jazz songs, as many of his albums contain these two complementary tempers, and the last disc of "Bastards" is reserved for his experimental cabaret and art rock... or you could say the ones that don't fit in - the most... 'crazy' stuff, perhaps. In this way it's a fine box set, and it's a rare compilation that makes it all a whole, although the individual songs have been written in different periods of time, so according to your mood and / or interest, one may select a specific musical style.
