Tom Waits - Mule Variations

Tom Waits’ 12th studio album and most commercially successful work since 1985’s Rain Dogs sounds like a front-porch jam session on a sweaty night in the Delta that also sees Captain Beefheart and Harold Arlen drop on by for a visit. The vocalist’s ability to sell more than a million copies of a double album that spans the expanse of American popular music all the way to early 20th-century German avant-garde epitomizes his genius.