Prick Tunes: Tom Waits "Bad As Me"

It should not surprise readers that Tom Waits would make an appearance here. His first new studio album since 2004's Real Gone drops today, so it is only fitting to see the titular track from Bad As Me in this space. Sadly there is no official video for this song *yet*, so this video is what you shall receive.

While I am generally reticent to reflect on albums as a whole here*, I can say that I've liked what I've heard so far. Perhaps you'll be so unlucky as to be [dis]graced with a quasi-review (or whatever the fuck it is I do here) in the near future.

*Largely because I do not feel the same way about an album on the first listen as I do on the fiftieth. After all, the listener's musical experience is tricky. For starters, it is subject to an evolutionary element as different facets of the song begin to function in varying ways that are not formed entirely independently of the listener. Music is also an art form that works on many different levels, but many of these levels come across on an aural plane. One could try to ascertain why certain instrumental orchestrations work, but I'm not that person unfortunately. Furthermore, any such efforts can later be rendered moot by the mere passage of time and the effect it has on one's feelings about an album. I guess this is an odd diatribe about my uncomfortability in committing my thoughts about the album as an art form. Of course, this likely means that I'll write something about Bad As Me while preemptively chalking up my inadequacy in describing my feelings about the album to this unease rather than ascribing these shortcomings to myself, but that's for another day.

Regardless, "Bad As Me" is a damn fine addition to the Tom Waits catalog, featuring the familiar (and I mean this in the best possible way) riffs of the spectacular Marc Ribot and New Orleans multi-instrumentalist Clint Maedgen on baritone sax sending the listener on a drunken voyage into the junkyard of Waits's construction.