• achtergronden
• DE 7EVEN
• video's
• agenda

ernaast

Tom Waits | Blood Money/Alice

Waits leftovers lack magic.
CD, Anti/Epitaph

Tekst: Martÿn ter Haar

Publicatiedatum: 04 september 2002

When you put a Tom Waits CD in your stereo, you expect the air in your room to start vibrating in unpredictable waves of genius. It is like the air molecules know that this was the way they were meant to vibrate; a fuck you to the bland chaos of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And when those two nitrogen or oxygen atoms hit your eardrum, the First Law is broken as well: the tiny amount of energy released increases to Big Bang proportions upon impact.

That's what you expect when you pop a Tom Waits CD in your stereo.

However, when you put Alice or Blood Money on your CD player, nothing like that happens. There's no magic. No laws of physics are broken. The effect is devastating. Expectations are filled by a horrible vacuum, a disequilibrium that should not exist. So, the Second Law is broken again, but this time it is a breakdown of reality instead of an opening towards unlimited possibilities.

When the initial shock is over and nature's order restored, the realisation comes that Waits still offers superior songwriting and arranging. Pure on craftsmanship, he remains almost unsurpassable. But unfortunately for Waits, Waits has done the same better.

Take Alice. The 15 songs on this album were written in 1992 for an opera by Robert Wilson, about the world's most famous pedophile, Lewis Caroll, and the object of his obsession and novels, Alice Lidell. The opening track is a beautiful slow ballad in a traditional arrangement with piano, muted trumpet, and saxophone. The second track is a beautiful slow ballad, the third track is a beautiful slow ballad, and also the fourth track is a beautiful slow ballad. The fifth track is no beautiful slow ballad, but the sixth track then again is one. Then there're nine more tracks to go, but by that time you've probably switched to a techno or death metal record, or anything, as long as it doesn't contain beautiful slow ballads. In case you're still interested: there're more beautiful slow ballads. Waits has also kept the arrangements pretty traditional, without that touch of insanity that is his trademark.

Blood Money is a more varied album and slightly better album. Opener Misery Is The River Of The World is even genuine Waits and by far the best track of the two albums. Follow-up Everything Goes To Hell can keep up the appearance, but then again, a certain grayness creeps into the album, a sense of routine. The tracks for Blood Money were also written for a Robert Wilson play, a musical adaption of Woyzeck that premiered in 2000.

With the material on Blood Money and Alice being two and ten years old, respectively, one can't help shake the feeling that Waits wasn't completely sure of the quality of the material either, and after a lot of doubting decided to release them for the sake of completeness.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/tom-waits/blood-money-alice/1826/
Meer Tom Waits op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/tom-waits