Tom Waits

It gets hard to keep the sundry compilations straight, but Used Songs' tracks come from Waits' first seven LPs on the Asylum label, an ideal introduction for those who got to know him through his later, more successful LPs. Avoiding many of the glaring omissions made by the 1986 compilation The Asylum Years (no "Ol' 55," no "Jersey Girl," nothing at all from Nighthawks at the Diner), this set is judiciously compiled and well paced, including numerous fan favorites and ably capturing his enormously transformative early years.