I was at a party last week and someone said I needed to listen to Tom Waits. I said what the heck because I'm always open to music I've never heard before. What I heard blew me away. This guy is the worst singer in the history of recorded music. He actually has surpassed names like Ricky Martin, Corey Hart and Jerry Garcia as the worst vocalist in the world. The only thing I could imagine sounding worse is if you got my uncle Ted drunk on Milwaukee's Best Light took him to a karaoke bar and had him sing a Josh Groban song. This guy is that awful. I stood up, walked over to the CD player, took out the Tom Waits CD and simply broke it in half, daring anyone to fight me. The owner of the CD ran at me, but I dusted him off with a crane kick and a people's elbow. I took off my elbow pads and gave them to a hot girl who wanted me really bad. I went to my ferrari and got my copy of Hasselhoff sings America and put it on the system. The party was immediately kicked up from an embarrassment to a nice, respectable level. Everyone took turns practicing wrestling moves on the Tom Waits fan that I laid out. One guy did a Hogan knee drop, another did a superfly snuka from the top rope(loveseat) and J abs threw in a camel clutch. The guy got what he deserved for trying to ruin the party with a cd from this goof. It literally sounds like he's gargling gravel. I don't whether to be mad that this got put on at the party to feel sorry for Mr. Waits because everyone keeps making him think he's talented.

It's dark, it's challenging, it's what others would call 'odd'. Highlights include "Going Out West", and "I Don't Want to Grow Up". It definitely doesn't move me like Swordfishtrombones or Rain Dogs, but it gets the job done. If you like Tom Waits, you'll like this album.

While dilligently avoiding the televised pregame festivies prior to last night's Patriots opener (speaking of which, am I the only one who wonders why they can't just play the damn game?), I was struck yet again by the gross unfairness of the fact that corporate-backed flashes in the pan like Maroon 5 and lumbering dinosaurs like the Rolling Stones get free hype and huge paychecks to perform before sporting events while Tom Waits and his brilliant legacy remain clouded in (relative) obscurity. While Waits has admittedly generated quite a bit of acclaim during his three-decade-plus music career, it still hasn't translated into anywere near enough notice from the masses, and that's a shame. Tom Waits is one of the few songwriters anywhere, ever, who can take listeners into what amounts to a parallel musical universe where the conventions so many people apply in judging music are nothing more than minor inconveniences. And Bone Machine, while not his best effort, is still one of his defining documents.

Perhaps Waits's most notable quality as a composer is his ability to draw from so many traditional American musics-folk, blues, jazz, rock-yet still create something in the process that manages to completely transcend its influences. I'm almost tempted to say Waits is a white man with a the soul of black bluesman, but any such simple racial comparison is woefully inadequate. Ultimately, Wait has his own voice and style, which is what enables his work to resonate even more than thirty years after his debut. What makes it all work in the end is that utterly unmistakable voice, at times gruff and raspy, at others fractured and vulnerable, but always richly evocative. With that smoky baritone leading the way, this album simply bleeds soul and authenticity, conveying more grit and emotion than the work of every whino emo band and oh-so-sensitive singer-songwriter out there put together. And Waits, unlike many, never feels the need to polish the rough edges of his music; everything is presented as is, in raw and unadorned fashion.

While this albm does suffer somewhat from the absence of Marc Ribot's awesome guitar playing (the main reason for the half-star deduction), there are still more than enough classics on Bone Machine to render it an essential listen. Pretty much every song on this album has something different to offer-some unconventional arrangement, some brilliant lyrical nugget, some creepy atmosphere or inspired vocal performance. The first three tunes here are vintage Waits, from the galloping backbeat and apocalyptic imagery of Earth Died Screaming, to the mournful, horn-fuelled balladry of Dirt in the Ground, to the jarring time signature and noisy experimentalism of Such a Scream. Things get ever better in the album's middle section, when Waits reels off a mind-blowing five classics in a row. Tell me, who else could string together the bluesy foot-stomper Jesus Gonna Be Here, the reflective elegy A Little Rain, the clanging, sinister In The Colosseum, the hilarious and hard-driving rocker Goin' Out West, and the twangy-yet-eerie Murder in the Red Barn? Most artists would be lucky to come up with this many great songs in a whole career, never mind busting them out right in a row on the same album. And towards the end, you get the raucous rave-up I Don't Wanna Grow Up and the messy, Keith Richards-augmented That Feel to round things out.

In spite of all I've said above, I can't recommend this album quite as unreservedly as I would, say, Rain Dogs or last year's Real Gone. And, as always, music this unpolished and unconventional isn't for everyone. Still, as is the case with some other great artists of recent times-Sonic Youth, Meshuggah, and Autechre come to mind-those who get it will truly get it. You don't just listen to Tom Waits's music; you experience it.