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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
by Tom Waits


8.8

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 127 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Unlike typical rarities compilations, this 3-disc set includes 30 brand-new recordings--in addition to the usual mix of covers, soundtrack selections, and other previously uncompiled material. It's like getting three new Waits albums at once.

LABEL:	Anti
RELEASE DATE:	21 November 2006
DISCS:	3 discs
GENRE(S):	Rock

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Observer Music Monthly

An outstanding musical creation... that nods to almost every known genre of American music, and some that have yet to be named.

100

Los Angeles Times

It's almost too much, really, but Waits doesn't release albums very often, so you can make it last.

100

Entertainment Weekly

Familiar, compelling, and tugging out empathy.

100

Playlouder

A colourful, incomparable colossus, a work of breathtaking, staggering genius and no mistake.

100

ShakingThrough.net

Orphans is a bravura showcase for the instrument of Tom Waits’ voice.

100

Slant Magazine

Each orphan stands proudly on its own as the vestige of an old idea or a forgotten path—proving that even Waits's missteps still manage to point in the right direction.

100

Uncut

It's remarkable... how much of a piece the entire set is, reflecting how skilfully Waits has welded the various tributary styles of his art into a seamless whole. [Dec 2006, p.122]

100

Mojo

Astounding... More even than his Exile On Main St., this is Tom Waits' Basement Tapes. [Dec 2006, p.104]

100

MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)

Sure enough, the first time through, too many [of the songs] had faded on me. Soon, however, even ones I'd given up on were bum-rushing my earhole.

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Waits may call them orphans, but another artist would call this a career.

Delusions of Adequacy

This is not Tom Waits’ best record... But the whole package... is riveting, a collection that should humble lesser musicians who only can aspire to the mantle of Waits’ discarded work.

Magnet

Orphans plays less like a career capstone than Waits' one-man Library of Congress field-recording project. [#74, p.93]

PopMatters

Compiled from various stages of his career, with varying fidelity but weirdly without varying quality, Orphans is the singularly odd cutting-room comp that serves as an equally decent introduction to a career.

BBC collective

Essential listening.

Prefix Magazine

Orphans is something akin to taking a journey through a familiar yet entirely foreign dream-place.

Dot Music

"Orphans" is that rarity of an album: one that will satisfy hardcore fans as well as the uninitiated.

All Music Guide

Orphans is a major work that goes beyond the origins of the material and drags everything past and present with sound and texture into a present to be presented as something utterly new, beyond anything he has previously issued.

Amazon.com

This set stands alongside Waits's finest work.

cokemachineglow

The collection is one of the best releases of 2006 because Tom Waits is one of America’s greatest living songwriters.

Pitchfork

The end product, neatly compartmentalized into three style-segregated discs, is about as perfect a summary of Waits' appeal as can be found on the open market, a shadow greatest hits that offers testimony to his unique and diverse talents without recycling any of his album material.

Stylus Magazine

Orphans may not have something for everyone, but what’s missing says more about the listener than the record.

Billboard

Vast in scope, rich in trope and full of hope. [25 Nov 2006]

The Guardian

[The three albums] together make up one very powerful entity.

Rolling Stone

A definitive album.

Village Voice

This is nightmare music--a blue-collar purgatory made of American mythology and populated by its grotesques.

Spin

Though the set's marathon length may keep casual listeners at a distance, fans of the eccentric characters, styles, and emotional arcs that compose Waits' oeuvre know there's no such thing as a "casual" Tom Waits listener anyway. [Dec 2006, p.103]

Hartford Courant

Waits is fearless in generating atmosphere and relentless in avoiding polish.

New Musical Express

Genius. [18 Nov 2006, p.33]

Paste Magazine

It would be a mistake to dismiss this box set as a bunch of leftovers of interest only to Waits fanatics. There is some filler, it’s true, but there are also more than a dozen songs that rank with his best work.

Q Magazine

A long, sometimes hard, often inspired haul, this could easily have been pared down to a uniformly excellent double disc. [Dec 2006, p.138]

Blender

The jumble of stuff that spills out -- from Delta blues to nineteenth-century ballads to spoken-word rambles -- is surprisingly consistent, at times transcendent, and not just for people intimately acquainted with Waits’s honeyed craziness.

Austin Chronicle

After 30 years, Waits keeps getting weirder and weirder while still aging gracefully.

The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 127 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
I love him, however, that being said I can understand how and why some people do not. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I shouldn't judge those who don't like him and they shouldn't say that he is awful, he just isn't for them.

Eoin B. gave it a10:
After more than a year with this album I'm still lost for words on how best to pay it tribute. Incredibly beautiful.

Dirty gave it a10:
Had always known of him, but this being my first of his albums - amazing. Sure the third lacks the quality of the first two, but the majority of artists in the charts today could not right more than one song of their own, and then play and sing them in away that is so unique and perfect for the lyrics. This guy is special when you get under the surface of that gravelly voice. In fact the voice is the cream on top. I hope those that rated an 0 can put it on again, sit down in the right mood one night ,with a top drop of red, and let go of their Pop ideals.

The Dude V G gave it a10:
Mark L., I believe you have a rather big cd collection of Britney Spears and Mariah Carey... I ain't going to explain the difference between them and the likes of Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, because I think everybody listens to what they like. About the album... If I could keep my breath for more then 3 hours I would... indescribable

Jon-E.K gave it an8:
Its definately one of Waits better albums, wonderful lyrics shouted, sung and brawled out with a rough raspy and varied vocal, that most people with a wide music vocabulary will be charmed by. Everything from the Stories about gritty outlaws, loners and bottom life dwellers to the experimental rhythmic composition is artfully execute in his own bizarre style. I found the bastards disk to be my favorite, because it was more experimental, it had a darker tone to it, much like Black Rider had. To them who can't get over his voice or claim that he can't sing, for one he's much better than most singers out there, he uses his voice like an instrument, its the pillar which upholds the whole composition. In fact he says this better himself.. "At the center of this record is my voice. I try my best to chug, stomp, weep, whisper, moan, wheeze, scat, blurt, rage, whine, and seduce. With my voice, I can sound like a girl, the boogieman, a Theremin, a cherry bomb, a clown, a doctor, a murderer - I can be tribal. Ironic. Or disturbed. My voice is really my instrument." Tom wait's quoted from Anti- article.

Jerry J. gave it a10:
Best release of 2006. By miles.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
After 30 years, Waits is still as unique and amazing as ever!

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards by Tom Waits

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
by Tom Waits