One From the Heart

Coppola lured Waits back to LA, taking him away from his newfound love for the NYC creative atmosphere, to write a soundtrack in the vein of Waits' earlier stuff, a sound the singer was trying to break away from. I like to think it was fate that brought him back to the West Coast, because if he'd not torn himself away from NYC, he never would've met his future wife (who worked in the film studio), and the latter part of his discography probably wouldn't have been as wonderful as it is. The beauty of that alone is, in my mind, worth the making of this overwrought, schmaltzy album. I'm sure Crystal Gayle is a fine singer, but her energy just doesn't work when mixed with Waits. There's just something about duets like this that drives me crazy. Like, the back and forth is just so cheesy? Don't think of this as a Waits album; it's a collaboration as much a Gayle album, which, in my book, is a hard pass. This album is sanitized Tom Waits.