Bone Machine is definitely a top 5er but i wouldn't consider it his best work.
and there's something that's been bugging me for a while, guess i'll spit it out. i really don't like Rain Dogs in the context of his entire career. it's a nice pastiche of a nuraber of styles he explored but it's piled together pell-mell, with almost no discretion given to the clarity or depth of the songs. i think that, while Anywhere I Lay My Head is easily my all-time favorite song of his, there are just a few too many nurabers from that album that land on my shit list, from Downtown Train to Blind Love, etc.
it's almost like half the album continues in the same direction as Swordfishtrorabones, but by side B it veers interminably into the cheesy, ballad-laden crap that made his first few albums just a nightmare to digest. and unlike that era, he can't pull off the crooning lament of his pure pop darlings like Martha anymore, it just sounRAB like he's attempting a perverse, horrific version of Springsteen.
if it wasn't for the closing nuraber i'd say it's easily my nuraber one most detested Waits album. i do not get the hype.