Some of the songs defy definition in terms of popular music. "Telepresence" is a chilling combination of spoken word over a distant layer of muted, tortured, and distorted electric guitar sounds. Desolate and devoid of any human warmth it expresses the true emptiness that lies at the heart of trivial stardom. "It's the Jesus channel baby, make the metal scream, make the metal scream" Burnett intones, making sure we know that all those sacrifices that have been made for stardom haven't resulted in anything close to salvation.

As you can tell from those descriptions Tooth Of Crime is not an easy disc to listen to in terms of content. It presents a very bleak image of a society where people desire fame for the sake of fame. What's more it appears that those who achieve fame never get to enjoy it as they spend all of their time obsessing over how to hold on to it. Isolation seems to be the only reward for celebrity, as those around them are either potential usurpers of their position or only interested in them for what they are, not who they are as people.

Musically and lyrically it presents the listener with challenges that one doesn't normally associate with popular music. Even songs like "Sweet Lullaby," with its gentle, country tinged, musical introduction, becomes unsettling with the addition of Burnett's vocal track. His voice has been treated so that it sounds like its being heard from a great distance and through an old radio speaker. The contrast between that and the warmth of the music adds an edge to an already emotionally ambivalent lyric, dashing the humanizing potential that the introduction implied.

While I am familiar with some of Sam Shepard's plays, Tooth Of Crime was not one that I knew anything about before listening to Burnett's CD. While knowledge of the play would probably enhance the experience of listening to the recording - it would be interesting to know about the characters who sung the songs and the circumstances in the play that inspired them - the CD stands as a work of art in its own right.

There are not many composers of any genre who are as capable of creating music that rewards its listeners to the extent that T Bone Burnett does. Not only is he an innovative musician he is also an intelligent lyricist. On Tooth Of Crime he demonstrates just how gifted he is in both areas.