There are those albums that capture the zeitgeist (and without doubt there will be plenty in the PlayLouder end of year poll that in the future will always reek only of 2006) and then there are those albums that transcend time itself. Tom Waits for nobody, and 'Orphans' is a colourful, incomparable colossus, a work of breathtaking, staggering genius and no mistake. Waits hasn't put a foot wrong in such a long time; 'Real Gone' was the best hip hop album of the decade (though most people wouldn't classify it as such), and 'Alice' and 'Blood Money' showed the prolific old goat hitting the sort of consistency that had rarely alluded him in any case.
Gushing praise must be starting to piss Waits off, yet this album is so good that it's almost unfeasible to imagine that he is actually of our time - he's a character who can create music that is immediately classic and otherworldly. The only problem with this offering is that there is just so much of it. 'Orphans' is a month of Ambassadors receptions, a child owning his own sweetshop, the proverbial pig in a theme park made of shit. While staggering, it is impossible to absorb everything on a first, or second, or third listen. Just where do you start with 'Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards'?
The clue of course is in the title. The three CD set is split into three categories. 'Brawlers' offers up brawny, rhythmical riots, rollicking rockabilly numbers and blues-hop beasts, 'Bawlers' sees Waits revisiting the whimsical barroom heartbreakers that defined his early artistic existence, and 'Bastards' encompasses everything else, the mean and difficult square pegs, the anecdotes and sea shanties and the flights of fancy. When music consumption is becoming less and less about the albums themselves and more about separate tracks, this collection throws down the gauntlet and demands you listen to everything, the 30 new tracks and all the rest from the Waits archive. These songs are not just for Christmas, and to absorb and appreciate them fully you will need to be listening well in 2007.
The most immediate is 'Bawlers', the growly, gin-soaked odes to reflection, tipsy melancholy and wonderment, they will make you sad, they will make you long for lost loves, and they will encourage you to be alone or head for the snug and babble in the ears of drunks from your favourite barstool. 'Brawlers' is earthy, dirty, gravely and funky, and if it were a painting it would depict a dancing hobo clasping a winning lotto ticket. 'Bastards', the most fractured of the three, hangs together as a bona fide album and creates its own strange, aesthetic world in a way that only Waits can. Frankly, 'Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards' is hugely daunting, but it's irresistible nonetheless. Immerse yourself in it as will I, and we'll get together for some drinks and discuss it next year, when we've both really listened to it.
Jeremy Allen
