Maps of Music

Blood Money (2002)

Where the lyrics of Blood Money take you, and where it was really made.

Tom Waits released Blood Money on the same day as Alice, and its songs began as music for a stage production of Woyzeck.

Key places

Where the album was recorded and mixed (2002)

Recording site In The Pocket Studio — Blood Money was recorded and mixed at In The Pocket Studio in Forestville, California. The studio is the recording location credited on the album's release notes. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Blood Money: fifteenth studio album by Tom Waits
• Released in 2002 on the ANTI- label
• Thirteen tracks, all written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan
• Contains most of the songs written for Robert Wilson's production of Woyzeck
• Released at the same time as Alice, another Waits and Wilson project

Background

• Waits had worked with Wilson on two earlier plays: The Black Rider and Alice
• Wilson's Woyzeck premiered at the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen in November 2000
• The stage work is based on Georg Büchner's play of the same name
• The score matches Wilson's play; Waits only changed the title
• Waits said he did not think anyone would know who Woyzeck was

Recording

• Recorded and mixed at In The Pocket Studio, Forestville, California
• Mastered at The Mastering Lab, Hollywood, California
• Casey Waits, the singer's son, plays drums on one track
• Stewart Copeland plays drum set and log drums on one track
• Calliope, pod and marimbas give the record its percussive, raspy sound

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Tom Waits, born Thomas Alan Waits on 7 December 1949 in Pomona, California, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, music director and actor.
• Known for his gravelly voice, cynical texts and theatrical stage presence, he blends blues, jazz, bluegrass, vaudeville and country with rock.
• His lyrics portray the bizarre and overlooked people and places, while his work also shows romanticism and humour.
• Debuted in Los Angeles in 1971 after signing with manager Herb Cohen; the album Closing Time (1973) received good reviews, and the Eagles' cover of Ol' 55 brought success in 1974.
• Mid-1980s albums Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years featured eclectic instrumentation, marking a less conventional period after leaving Asylum for Island Records.
• Worked with his wife Kathleen Brennan on musicals such as The Black Rider with William S. Burroughs, and moved toward theatre alongside a parallel acting career.
• Acted in films by Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Altman and Terry Gilliam; composed the score for Coppola's Coup de cœur.
• Won Grammy Awards for Bone Machine (1993) and Mule Variations (2000); inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
• Has consistently refused to license his music for advertising and won lawsuits against several companies that ignored this.

Sources: fr.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Robert Christgau: praised Waits as a genius, saying that when he does not make masterpieces, he comes close
• Christgau: preferred Blood Money to Alice, calling it a more consistent record
• Christgau: wrote that the album is unbalanced by arbitrary thematic commitments
• Christgau: singled out 'Lullaby' for going somewhere new, and 'Another Man's Vine' for approaching tragedy
• The Observer: in its 6 October 2002 issue, called the music of the stage work a '21st-century Threepenny Opera'

Reappraisal

• Not covered in the source

Records

• Metacritic: ranked 18th in its Top 30 albums of 2002
• Metacritic ranking places the album among the best-reviewed releases of its year
• Recorded at In The Pocket Studio, Forestville, California, with credits for engineering, mixing and mastering listed separately

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · ja.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Waits played a calliope built in 1929 on this album.
• 'Starving in the Belly of a Whale' was used as the opening song of the film Buster's Mal Heart (2016).
• 'All the World Is Green' was included in the 2005 film The Secret Life of Words, directed by Isabel Coixet.
• The album's credits thank Henrik Hartman, who produced the Woyzeck production, and Robert Wilson, who directed its premiere at the Betty Nansen Theater in Copenhagen in November 2000.

Sources: ja.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

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