Spring '08 LPs From Madonna, Coldplay, The Roots, Mudcrutch, Elvis Costello : Rolling Stone

T Bone Burnett

Tooth of Crime 5/6

In the early 1990s, T Bone Burnett penned a set of songs for Sam Shepard's futuristic play The Tooth of Crime. But by the time the show hit off-Broadway, many of Burnett's songs had been severely shortened. Last year, Burnett recorded full versions of the ambient, foreboding songs — including "Kill Zone," which he wrote with Roy Orbison weeks before Orbison's 1988 death. "Roy told me he wanted to write a song like 'In Dreams,' which starts on his lowest note and climbs very slowly to his highest note," Burnett says. "It was probably his last song."