Consumer Guide Album

Tom Waits: Franks Wild Years [Island, 1987]
Amid these fragments from a musical that wouldn't make all that much sense fully staged, you'll find five-six songs that stand on their own--couple howlin' blues, coupla tuneful heart-tuggers, coupla Wayne Newton parodies. But if in the '20s Rudy Vallee sang through a megaphone because he wanted to sound modern, in the '80s Waits sings through a megaphone because he wants to sound old. This being the '80s, you're free to prefer Waits--as long as you don't kid yourself too much about his conceptual thrust. B