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After a series of idiosyncratic albums in the early eighties, in which Burnett perfected his stripped-down, rhythmic acoustic guitar-based style for independent labels, this 1987 album followed hot on the heels of his surprising, yet charm-laden eponymous "country" LP.
The sound is noticeably bigger, more widescreen, although Burnett produced it himself - it's almost as if he consciously switched into "major label mode" with this album. The singer's acoustic guitar is replaced by a funereal string section on "Purple Heart", in which he duets with a stratospheric Bono guest vocal, whilst on "Image", a selection of vibrato-tastic opera singers wobble along with him in exotic languages.
Highlights for me are the sardonic "Euromad", which recounts a European tour gone awry, to a perfectly planned and executed backing ("Maybe it was Paris, its blazing dignity and light..." he sings, as an accordion drifts into the mix and out again within the space of that one line), the Stones-like stomp of "You Could Look It Up" - surely the best Stones song Mick 'n' Keef never wrote - and the frenetic B-movie satire "Dance Dance Dance". Opener "The Wild Truth", written in the midst of Reagan-era America, is still as frighteningly relevant in these days of flexible standards of truth.
Slightly more challenging are those tracks where the lyrics take complete precedence over the music ("Frank Cash") and, whilst it's no doubt poetry, the tune seems to have gone AWOL. These occasions are mercifully few, however, and the result is possibly T Bone Burnett's most accessible album.
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