Tom Waits: Mule Variations (2LP) [ANTI-]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads Mule Variations over four sides in a gatefold jacket. It won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, earned a nomination for "Hold On," and Rolling Stone ranked it among the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Large parts of Mule Variations were made in a hen coop in rural California that had been turned into a studio, and some of the original residents can be heard on the record. That tells you a lot about Tom Waits' approach: whatever sounds real, stays.

It was his first studio album in six years, written and produced with his wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan, and it brings together his junkyard percussion and his gift for a tender song. "Big In Japan" clanks and stomps, "Hold On" is one of his loveliest ballads, "Get Behind The Mule" rolls like old field blues, "What's He Building?" is a spoken-word chiller, and "Come On Up To The House" closes on a rousing gospel note.

It has sold more than half a million copies, and the tour that followed was his first proper tour in over a decade. The chickens didn't get a production credit, though in fairness neither did the mule.

Also at Kops: more Tom Waits on vinyl · browse Singer-Songwriter

Tracklist

Listen

On Anti- (cat# 86547-1), the 1999 album.