R&b
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Tooth of Crime
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When I first heard Tooth of Crime, I was not in the proper frame of mind to actually appreciate it. Before hunkering down to seriously consider it's complexities, I needed to have an open mind and a strong constitution. But that's just me. After all, there is a lot of darkness to ponder as well as some devastatingly dark humor that could rub a person the wrong way.And I think that it was T Bone Burnett's intention to create something that could rub the listener the "wrong way" in that it is difficult to listen to if all you want is a panacea to the world's ills. Sorry, but our societal ills call for a more homeopathic musical remedy than mere emotional sleight-of-hand and pleasant distraction. The songs on Tooth of Crime are what performance artist Laurie Anderson once called "difficult listening music". To attach this term to Tooth of Crime is actually a compliment from my perspective. I know another reviewer made a negative aside to David Byrne's "Knee Plays", but since I love that album I cannot share that sentiment. In fact, on many of the tracks the horns remind me considerably of that 80s bit of theatrical soundtracking. However, Burnett's lyrics are much more dark and complex than Byrne's abstract absurdism. I can appreciate both for different reasons, and to be honest I would rather not go into comparing applejack to orangeade.Going back to Tooth of Crime, for me these tracks have felt like emotional grindcore with a subtext of sadomasochism that adds to the depths of depravity exposed by Burnett's lyrics. I am thinking of his song, "Kill Zone", specifically these words: For I'll steal your dreams while you are sleeping / And sell them for dust and cheap lust / And I'll slit your hope while you are weeping / And wipe the blade clean with morphine / Be my queen."This is a dark ride on the other side of the spectrum from false cultural "feel-good" tropes. And this is to be embraced as such. To hope for something else from Burnett at this stage in his musical development would be to hope for a lie. It is refreshing to hear the work of someone who does not consider personal struggle as anathema to life. While it may be disquieting for many to hear the combination of music and lyrics contained within Tooth of Crime, perhaps we need to be disquieted at what we have allowed our culture to become: a worthless landscape filled with American Idol worship.What I hear Burnett saying in this album is that it's high time we melted down the Golden Calf we have created and accept the lessons we have yet to learn.
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