Bone Machine

Waits recorded most of it in the cellar of Studio C at Prairie Sun, which he called the Waits Room, with a cement floor and a hot water heater. Kathleen Brennan was associate producer. It was the first of his albums on which he played drums and percussion extensively. Keith Richards plays guitar and sings on That Feel, David Hidalgo plays on Whistle Down the Wind, which is dedicated to the late Tom Jans, and Ralph Carney overdubs horns on Dirt in the Ground.

It reached number 176 in the US and 26 in the UK, and won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune called it the most varied and impressive group of songs Waits had written. Steve Huey of AllMusic called it his most affecting and powerful recording, even if not his most accessible. Pitchfork placed it 49th and Rolling Stone 53rd among the albums of the 1990s.

Waits wanted to explore more machinery sounds, reflecting his interest in industrial music, and the room he found was an old storage room at Prairie Sun. Eight of the tracks were co-written with Brennan, and Waits and Jesse Dylan co-designed the cover. Jim Jarmusch directed the video for I Don't Wanna Grow Up, and Dylan directed the one for Goin' Out West. Tchad Blake is listed as mixing nine tracks and Biff Dawes four, with Bob Ludwig mastering at Masterdisk, Joe Gore on guitar for All Stripped Down, Goin' Out West and Black Wings, and David Phillips on pedal steel. Waits quit drinking in 1992. When the album won the Grammy, he asked Jarmusch what it was an alternative to.