Tom Waits

On Heartattack and Vine, the patron saint of America's hobo hipsters returns to the
sentimental ballad style he abandoned for jazzier, less song-oriented turf after The Heart of
Saturday Night. Though Tom Waits' new album sports its share of slinky blues vamps, it's the
tear-jerkers that really matter. Lyrically, "Jersey Girl" conjures up Bruce Springsteen's
world, then adds an arrangement that echoes the Drifters' "Spanish Harlem." But... More >

Lurching from hip to bathetic in his doomed pursuit of the let's-get-wasted market, he needs an editor more than Jack Kerouac ever did. But Kerouac rarely came up with tropes as axiomatic as "I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of Scotch" or "If you don't get my letter, then you'll know that I'm in jail," neither of which ought to spend their lives buried in overgrown verbiage and stentorian second-line. And sometimes he gets away with his sh*t, as in the tearfully tuneful "Jersey Girl" or the blisteringly bluesy "Mr. Siegal"--or "Heartattack and Vine," which could make you hope he's getting tired of getting wasted. (Grade: B)