Tom Jones: Classic or Dud?

so in 94 Tom Jones recorded a technofied version of Yazoo's "Situation" and it's...kinda awesome?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f49GhmNO2Fg

Jones’ last three albums - Praise and Blame, Spirit in the Room, and Long Lost Suitcase - are all really, really good. The first one is almost all gospel songs, and the others include versions of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Gillian Welch songs. So, the Johnny Cash trick, but weirder and noisier. Half the songs sound like they were co-produced by Waits and Jack White. Raw garage-blues shit with Jones howling the walls down. I was shocked.

Oh yeah, heard his version of that Gillian Welch song and liked it, will have to check out the rest of that stuff.

This bit never gets old, but if you've never heard it ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1eXkYl7a8U

The obscure Tom Jones cover I remember the most is, inexplicably, "If I Only Knew," but the otherwise unremarkable (iirc) TVT band Rise Robots Rise. Rise Robots Rise seems like one of those bands where, if I looked them up, I'd learn that one or two of their members went on to be super-famous in some other band or as a producer, but I also bet ... not.

Looks like the last three records were all produced by Ethan Johns, which explains both the hip song selection and the sound, probably (Johns plays a lot of stuff himself, but there are some ringers on there, too). But these albums all seem pretty cool, I'll have to listen.