Artist: TOM WAITS
Album: BEAUTIFUL MALADIES: THE ISLAND YEARS (DIGI)

Release date: 1998
Media type: CD

Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years is a Tom Waits compilation album, consisting of previously-released songs from his years recording with Island Records, most notably from the albums Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Big Time and Franks Wild Years. The tracks were selected by Tom Waits. The album was released in 1998, but represents Waits's output from 1983 to 1993.

Even if Tom Waits had ended his career in the early 1980s, before he moved over to Island Records, he would still be regarded as a mighty member of the singer/songwriter elite. This makes it all the more impressive that he completely re-invented himself after switching labels in the mid-'80s, most notably with the Holy Trinity of SWORDFISHTROMBONES, RAIN DOGS, and FRANK'S WILD YEARS. On these albums, whose highlights make up the meat of BEAUTIFUL MALADIES, Waits abandoned the jazzy, piano-bound beatnik persona he'd carefully maintained throughout the '70s. Instead he created a groundbreaking patchwork that encompassed polkas, blues, deranged cabaret, the avant-garde, and more, in a funhouse-mirror reflection of Howlin' Wolf, Kurt Weill, and Harry Partch. The fact that he'd lost none of his masterful songwriting acumen in the process insured that Waits's Island recordings, so definitively represented here, would be his lasting legacy.

TRACKLIST:

1."Hang On St. Christopher" (originally on the album Franks Wild Years) - 2:44
2."Temptation" (originally on the album Franks Wild Years) - 3:53
3."Clap Hands" (originally on the album Rain Dogs) - 3:48
4."The Black Rider" (originally on the album The Black Rider) - 3:23
5."Underground" (originally on the album Swordfishtrombones) - 1:59
6."Jockey Full Of Bourbon" (originally on the album Rain Dogs) - 2:47
7."Earth Died Screaming" (originally on the album Bone Machine) - 3:38
8."Innocent When You Dream (78)" (originally on the album Franks Wild Years) - 3:09
9."Straight To The Top" (originally on the album Franks Wild Years) - 2:28
10."Frank's Wild Years" (originally on the album Swordfishtrombones) - 1:52
11."Singapore" (originally on the album Rain Dogs) - 2:45
12."Shore Leave" (originally on the album Swordfishtrombones) - 4:18
13."Johnsburg, Illinois" (originally on the album Swordfishtrombones) - 1:34
14."Way Down In The Hole" (originally on the album Franks Wild Years) - 3:30
15."Strange Weather (Live)" (originally on the album Big Time) - 3:34
16."Cold, Cold Ground (Live)" (originally on the album Big Time) - 3:27
17."November" (originally on the album The Black Rider) - 2:55
18."Downtown Train" (originally on the album Rain Dogs) - 3:51
19."16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six" (originally on the album Swordfishtrombones) - 4:33
20."Jesus Gonna Be Here" (originally on the album Bone Machine) - 3:19
21."Good Old World (Waltz)" (originally on the album Night on Earth) - 3:55
22."I Don't Wanna Grow Up" (originally on the album Bone Machine) - 2:32
23."Time" (originally on the album Rain Dogs) - 3:53