| Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers | 1976 |
| You're Gonna Get It! | 1978 |
| Damn The Torpedoes | 1979 |
| Hard Promises | 1981 |
| Long After Dark | 1982 |
| Pack Up The Plantation (live) | 1983 |
| Southern Accents | 1985 |
| Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) | 1987 |
| Full Moon Fever | 1989 |
| Into The Great Wide Open | 1991 |
| Greatest Hits | review #2 (compilation) | 1993 |
| Wildflowers | 1994 |
| Playback (box set) | 1995 |
| Songs And Music From The Motion Picture "She's The One" | 1996 |
| Echo | 1999 |
| The Last DJ | 2002 |
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
There isn't too much to say about Tom Petty's debut album, and apparently the critics and mass public in 1976 thought so too, since the album didn't even become a hit until about a year and a half after its release. When it did, it was because the minimalistic organ groove-turned-single "Breakdown" suddenly took off, and while it's a decent song, it was practically improvised in the studio, and definitely sounds like it. I mean, I have nothing against the song in theory, but when he has so many better songs, I really wish classic rock radio stations would stop falling back on that one just because it was the one that got him on the radio in the first place. The other single "American Girl" is about ten times better, with great vocal harmonies, clean, jangly guitars, a superb melody and an incredibly Byrdsy feel that allegedly led Roger McGuinn to believe that it was a song he had recorded but forgotten about. I guess that's the kind of stuff that happens when you once shared a band with David Crosby.
The rest of the album doesn't really amount to much more than a decent collection of straightforward rock tunes, basically what you'd expect from a leather-jacketed, long-haired rocker in 1976, but a bit more consistent. Besides "American Girl" (which closes the album on an incredibly memorable note) all of the standouts are on the first side, including two incredibly catchy songs with "Rock" in their title ("Rockin' Around (With You)" and "Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll"), a slow jangly thing with probably the most pretentious title thought up by any rock musician ("The Wild One, Forever") and a decent leftover from Tom's old Florida band Mudcrutch (the two-minute "Hometown Blues"). The second side is much less consistent, with fewer decent melodies and more empty and unmemorable rock grooves in their place (especially "Fooled Again" and "Luna") and kind of slows the overall pace to a crawl. Overall, the album is fairly good, but doesn't stand up to most of the Heartbreakers' later work.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Pretty much more of the same (a common theme amongst Heartbreakers albums) - ten guitar-filled, kickin' rock songs with a long-haired, perpetually stoned-looking dude squealing over them. The only difference is that the squealing isn't as audible this time around; the mix sounds a little fuller but at the expense of burying Tom's vocals on several of the tracks. Were he an exceptional singer, I'd probably be complaining, but otherwise, it really doesn't matter. Otherwise, the formula of the debut is pretty much replicated, with the crucial difference that the material is a little stronger. The opener "When The Time Comes," for one, is a better song than almost anything at the debut, with a killer descending melody set to an urgent rock backing, and "Restless" has as neat of a guitar groove as Mike Campbell ever churned out (the melody ain't nothin' to snub your nose at, either!).
As is fairly typical for most Heartbreakers albums, there were two hit singles, and they're both of extremely high quality - "Listen To Her Heart" is another in a series of great flowing Byrdsy tunes from the pen of Mr. Petty (and got the band into trouble for the opening lyric "You think you're gonna take her away, with your money and your cocaine" - what, if we hear the name of a drug, we're all automatically gonna start ODing on it?), and the charging "I Need To Know" has one of the coolest guitar sounds in the Heartbreakers' catalogue. Like the debut, there's a dry spot, but this time it's on the first side (the three middle songs in particular) - the title track sounds like it was written in about five minutes (and probably was), sounding like an empty blueprint for the following album's "Don't Do Me Like That," and the slower "Hurt" and "Magnolia" don't really have much going for them melodically, at least compared to the other tunes. The rest is as fine of a collection of tunes as you can imagine for a sophomore album - it even ends with another "Rock" song ("Baby's A Rock 'N' Roller") - and a really great one at that! By the way, both of these albums are short. I mean, really short. Beach Boys short. Like half an hour long. If you put them both together, you'd get Wildflowers.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
This album was released during a critical turning point in Petty's career - MCA had bought out the band's original label, ABC, and he was thrown into a corrupt and unmanageable record deal in which he knew almost none of his associates and didn't even have control over his own material. He spent several months in a legal battle with MCA over the rights to his recorded material, and even went so far as to declare bankruptcy (thus freezing all of his assets) and have one of his roadies keep the demo tapes for the album in his car to prevent the label from seizing them and releasing whatever unfinished material they could find. Tom's perserverance won out and the label buckled to his demands, and Tom's recordings were placed under control of a more manageable satellite record label, with the finished album released as the band intended it.
Petty probably thanks his guardian angel every night that everything turned out all right, because the resulting album was a huge commercial success and permanently raised Petty's status from an anonymous rock songwriter to a high-caliber hitmaker. The publicity over the court battle probably had a lot to do with the album's success, but Jimmy Iovine's clear production values and the band's newly-found talent for strong, direct songwriting more than likely helped out a lot. The hits became permanent staples of FM classic rock radio, the biggest of which were "Refugee," probably the best and most gripping relic from Tom's court battle ("Everybody has to fight to be free") and the more light and bouncy "Don't Do Me Like That," which was actually put on the album as an afterthought during some last-minute playbacks, and went on to become the album's biggest chart success.
The punchy and strong songwriting is typical of almost the whole album; even the lesser rockers like "Shadow Of A Doubt (A Complex Kid)" and "Century City" would've been surefire singles were they included on either of the first two albums (especially the former, one of Petty's unheralded classics from his early period). This just makes the singles themselves seem even stronger than they already are, from the hooky and expansive nice-guys-finish-first rocker "Even The Losers" to the pseudo-spoken word groove "Here Comes My Girl." The album drops off a bit at the end, with a rather nondescript (if catchy) rocker ("What Are You Doing In My Life") and a somewhat ho-hum country ballad closer ("Louisiana Rain"), but on the whole the album is a consistent and exciting listen that follows the "grace under pressure" maxim to a tee. It would probably be tough on his psyche, but Petty should get into legal battles more often.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Prior to this album's release, Petty cemented his position as a hardline anti-establishment people's man by getting in another legal battle with MCA, this time because for no reason at all they were planning on jacking up the list price of this album to $9.98 (which was pretty high at the time - it's what Sam Goody would have charged back then, basically). Petty refused to deliver the album until the proposed price was lowered, and even threatened to name the album $8.98 were the price increase to be adopted. Suffice it to say, his court track record soon became 2 for 2, and the album was released at a normal price which was then naturally raised by inflation. Can't stop that, I guess.
This is a very casual album, more so than any other Heartbreakers album - even the album cover shows casual Tom casually walking through a record store in a casual plaid shirt and casual brown jacket. The more emotional and epic characteristics of the previous album (not that Torpedoes was Springsteen or anything) are toned down and replaced with a simpler, more humble vibe, exemplified especially by direct and unoriginal but catchy-as-frig rockers like "King's Road" and "A Thing About You." The hit single was "The Waiting," known mostly for having a Rickenbacker guitar sound that sounds almost exactly like something from an old Byrds single, but also known for its classic, top-notch melody and fitting use in a Simpsons episode where Homer is suffering through the waiting period to buy a gun. The ballad-rocker "A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)" was also a minor hit, but it suffered from being released at the same time as Tom's Stevie Nicks duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," and since god forbid that the radio play two current singles related to the same artist, the one with the Fleetwood Mac member came out tops.
There aren't really any particular lows on the album, in all truth - it's an extremely consistent album. Whether it's the clanky funk of "Nightwatchman" or the slow balladry of "You Can Still Change Your Mind" or "Insider" (another Stevie Nicks duet) or the creepy Southern rockicity of "Something Big," you can bet that it'll be a solid, memorable number with a catchy chorus and great playing courtesy of our good friends the Heartbreakers. The only problem is that there aren't any particular highs, either (with the mega-obvious exception of "The Waiting"), which makes the album sound a tad boring on those first couple of listens. It's a good'un, though, and should definitely be a part of anybody's core Petty collection assuming they buy more than Greatest Hits.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The Heartbreakers' fifth album has a curious reputation amongst critics of being their all-time weakest, which is pretty bizarre seeing that it sounds exactly like their first four albums. The only difference is that the hit single, "You Got Lucky," is a rather cold and bleak synth-driven tune which has understandably divided the critical public over its worth as a song (because, you see, it's not full of rockin' gee-tars and the like), but if an entire album is going to be written off just because of one song (which I myself love), you'd might as well just call it a single. The rest of the album is pure Heartbreakers-brand rock 'n' roll, with all of the punchy hooks everyone had come to expect of the band by this point. "Deliver Me" for one has a great chorus, using Petty's stringy nasal vocals to their best possible effect, and "Change Of Heart" is the song that everyone who hates "You Got Lucky" likes, and even though it's not the most creative song ever (it's pretty much just the latest in an endless series of rock songs based on the "Sweet Jane" riff) it's definitely one of Tom's most exciting songs.
The rest of the album is just more straightforward kickbutt rock and roll, particularly "One Story Town" and "Finding Out," and while it's not the most creative stuff in the world, each song has some undeniable and awesome hook, and nobody was accusing the Heartbreakers of being creative in the first place anyway. The one real departure from the formula besides "You Got Lucky" is the wonderful "Straight Into Darkness," a chilling piano-based number that sets up an eerie atmosphere with one of Tom's best melodies (great intro, too). Unfortunately, after that song the album drops off a bit in quality; "The Same Old You" is just the same old ho-hum, and both "Between Two World" and "Wasted Life" are rather boring songs that go on for way too long for a good Heartbreakers tune (the former is over five minutes long! Sure, that's a short Yes song, but a long-ass Petty tune!). Still, the album is much better than most professional critics are willing to admit (I guess every band has to have -one- bad album in their minds), and one of the definite highlights of the Heartbreakers' early period.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Petty's sixth album was originally intended as a conceptual solo project, but as more and more of his bandmembers contributed to the sessions it eventually became a full-fledged Heartbreakers album. Tom's idea was to release a double album celebrating his Southern roots, and came up with many of the songs by writing down single words he associated with the Southern experience and writing songs around them. Apparently this led him to a creative dead end, because he eventually hooked up with Dave Stewart from Eurythmics to produce the album and help out with the songwriting. Why, out of all the producers in the world, Tom chose the backbone of a popular British synth-pop duo to produce a rootsy, down-home American album is completely beyond me. At any rate, Stewart's presence makes the album a lot glossier than it was probably originally intended, and he splatters loads of drum machines and horns all over the place, resulting in an album with a somewhat awkward sound.
Stewart's not really the album's problem, though - he even co-wrote two of the album's best songs. The hit "Don't Come Around Here No More" is one of the most celebrated stylistic excursions in Tom's catalogue, and with good reason - it has a wonderful dreamy vibe that manages to use the synths and drum machines in a way that doesn't seem forced or corny at all, and its surreal Alice In Wonderland video is a deserved MTV classic. His other co-write is the whitebread funk tune "Make It Better (Forget About Me)" - a bit retarded, really, but catchy as a mother. The album's real problem is that too much of it is attempted substance without the musical beef to back it up. The opener "Rebels" for one is an admirable attempt at an epic opener, but all of Tom's ambitions are almost ruined by the corny melody and whiny vocal delivery, easily one of Tom's most grating ever. Also, some of the other songs are just lame on their own - "Spike" in particular is a really grating minimalist groove about a punk getting harassed by a bunch of down-home Southern boys. If Tom was trying to celebrate his Southern heritage, this wasn't the right way to do it.
Luckily, a couple of the other Petty-written songs save the album from being a complete bust - the simple title track is one of his most beautiful ballads, and "The Best Of Everything" is a nicely-written anthemic closer that uses the sloppy horn section to good effect for once. Plus, most of the stuff I haven't insulted isn't really that bad, it's just not up to the level of Tom's best work (I love the call-and-response vocals of "It Ain't Nothin' To Me," but really, the song as a whole is pretty stupid). Too much of the album is made up of rather failed attempts at artistic significance, however, and pretty much proof that some rockers are best left to catchy, straightforward rocking and nothing else.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
In the grand tradition of the Who and the Kinks and probably a zillion other bands that I'm too lazy to list, Petty chose to follow up his most pompous and ambitious album with a return to the simple hard rock that made him a star in the first place. Unfortunately, much like those two bands, he seemed to forget that his older and simpler music also had a hint of substance behind all of the clanging guitars and poppy melodies, and the album that he ended up churning out with the Heartbreakers just comes off as a bunch of facile, simplistic Petty-by-numbers rock songs with absolutely nothing beneath the surface. What makes this regression more annoying is that a lot of the '80s production gloss that slightly marred Southern Accents is still present on several of the tracks (despite the absence of Dave Stewart, who at this point was producing Mick Jagger's Primitive Cool and fulfilling his normal role of standing in the background with his goofy hair in Eurythmics videos), and when it's not, the production makes up for it by being thin and uninviting, something which couldn't be said about the Heartbreakers' classic turn-of-the-decade albums.
None of this would matter if the melodies were still strong, but Tom misfires a bit too often for comfort on this particular collection. The album is actually one of the most diverse in Petty's catalogue, ranging from horn-spiked quasi-soul ("All Mixed Up") to rockabilly ("Think About Me") to Stonesy rock (title track), but none of the songs are very strong compositions at all, burdened by weak journeyman melodies and the aforementioned thin production values. Plus, several of the more typical Petty-ish numbers on the album just aren't amongst his strongest; "A Self Made Man" and "How Many More Days" are particularly weak songs with rather forgettable melodies and limp playing (something I hate to say about the Heartbreakers, because they're a really great band, but something about this album just dulls their impact on several of the songs). None of these songs are awful, of course (I don't think Petty's capable of writing an awful song), but they're certainly amongst the least memorable Petty ever wrote.
A set of really good tunes on the album's first half rescue the proceedings from collapsing into total disorganized chaos, however - the lone hit "Jammin' Me" (co-written with Bob Dylan, not that it sounds like anything he's ever written) is a hilarious and catchy guitar rocker that namedrops Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo (a.k.a. "The Only Reasons SNL Survived The Early '80s"), "Runaway Trains" is an Eastern-flavored ballad which manages to work a processed-sounding drum track to its own benefit, the folk ballad "It'll All Work Out" sounds like it's played on about fifty strings and is really pretty if a bit generic, and "My Life/Your World" has a really neat and menacing groove and an instantly memorable chorus. The rest of the album is considerably less consistent, and shows signs that at this point in his career Tom had come to a creative dead end. The album cover's really cool, though. Try to find a scan of it or something.
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COMMENTS
john_schlegel@hotmail.com (John Schlegel)
Whoa! Only a 5! This seems to be the most commonly dogged Tom Petty album. I have never fully understood why that is. Yes, it has its share of filler material. But even though Petty is thought of as a highly consistent songwriter, I still think the problem of filler material finds its way onto a reasonable number of his other records (not just this one). My best guess why this is one of the Heartbreakers' least-liked outings is that the work attempts numerous stylistic experiments and does not mesh together very well. It bounces around from one unique track to the next and fails to make a cohesive statement. Still, it is my opinion that this one is usually too heavily criticized. I admit that I have not heard all of the Heartbreakers' '70s and '80s albums all the way through, so I am not sure how much worse this one is by comparison (I think Hard Promises is SOMEWHAT better by comparison). But this is a decent, enjoyable disc with some very good songs. "You're Jammin' Me" is an excellent single; a shame it didn't appear on Greatest Hits. Yes, "My Life/You're World" is a good, eerie album track. The merry soul number "All Mixed Up" and the pretty, somber ballad "It'll All Work Out" are also great songs. I could see a 7 on this one.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Following the musical schizophrenia of Let Me Up, Tom decided that he was finally gonna make that solo album he'd tried to make five years earlier, and gosh darnit, it was actually gonna turn out a freakin' solo album this time around. He couldn't keep Mike Campbell away from the sessions, who ended up co-producing and playing lead guitar on every track, addictive Pettyphile and generally nice guy that he was (hey, why not, he's got cool sunglasses), but for the most part this is a pure Pettython through and through. In searching for a producer, collaborator and musical guru, Tom hit upon ELO pomp-rocker Jeff Lynne while listening to an advance copy of George Harrison's Lynne-produced Cloud 9, and decided that this was just the white afro-sportin' disco boy he needed to produce his folksy rock album. Lynne's subsequent involvement with the album gave it a glossy, candy-like and edible sheen very typical of ELO's work but without all of the violins and crap. The vocals are placed in the front of the mix, the guitars are given a more streamlined and jangly sound, and above all, every single song has an instantly catchy and hummable chorus.
This total reinvention of Tom's sound might be branded as a sellout by some, who would then rightfully realize the error of accusing a megastar who already had numerous Top 20 hits by this point in his career of selling out and then go and cower underneath a rock like the pathetic worms they are. It's true that this album catapulted Tom (and the Heartbreakers along with him, thankfully) into a higher echelon of stardom and laid the framework for a softer, more folksy sound that would define his career for the next decade, but does that make the music any less enjoyable? Hell no! As many times as the coming-of-age anthem "Free Fallin'" has been played on the radio (a lot), it has still remained a delightfully-simplistic and note-perfect little chimey acoustic ballad. The same goes for the chugging "I Won't Back Down" and the rip-roaring (albiet in a slightly muted Lynne-ish way) "Runnin' Down A Dream," two incredibly catchy singles and rightful radio classics which show Tom not only in greater control of his melodic skills but also his voice, which is remarkably restrained over the course of the whole album.
This radio standard-dropping isn't meant to peg this album as just a late-'80s hit machine, of course - I wouldn't be raving this much if it weren't a remarkably consistent album. Whether busting out power chords ("Love Is A Long Road"), revisiting standard straightforward rock stylings ("The Apartment Song," "A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own"), moping along in a sea of glossy muck ("A Face In The Crowd") or busting out random and bizarre analogies like some kind of neo-Dylan ("Zombie Zoo"), it's all concisely-written, singalongable, and goes down really easily but man does it taste good while it's going. There's even a really awesome cover of the Byrds' "Feel A Whole Lot Better" which is incredibly faithful and actually uses the added production gloss to aid the song rather than hinder it. This is typical for basically the whole album - shiny, fun, and not exactly masterpiece-level work, but really darned fun anyway. Tom and Jeff Lynne were two of the masterminds behind the Traveling Wilburys' debut the same year, which was a similarly careless and enjoyable listening experience, and highly recommended - both albums were actually up for the 1989 Album Of The Year Grammy, but they both lost to Bonnie Raitt's Nick Of Time. At least it wasn't Girl You Know It's True or something.
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COMMENTS
Fabulous album; I agree with the 9! It isn't mind-blowing, masterpiece-level work, but it is so uplifting, enjoyable, and consistent. The production is glossy and assessable without sounding at all dated. "Depending on You" is a little nondescript, and "Zombie Zoo" is a moronic closer, but every song is finely crafted and polished, and, for the most part, memorable in its own way. The three big radio hits are all timeless rock songs that are really hard to grow tired of. "Facing the Crowd" is beautifully moody, and the rootsy rockers "Feel a Whole Lot Better" and "The Apartment Song" are just lots of fun. And, to top all that off, this album contains what has to be one of my all-time favorite Tom Petty songs ever, "Yer So Bad"--an endlessly infectious shuffler, with very charming lyrics. BTW, has anyone ever heard that "Weird Al" Yankovic obscurity, "Yer Such a Brat," which was a "Yer So Bad" parody about Bart Simpson? I swear I heard it on a Portland, OR radio station once, and no Weird Al fan I have come across since has ever heard anything about it. It's POSSIBLE that the song was done by a Weird Al wannabe artist, or even the radio station; but, if you know anything about it, please e-mail me! My goodness, what a weird stream of consciousness that was.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Second verse, same as the first, a little bit janglier and a teensy bit worse. Tom watched Full Moon Fever climb to #3 on the charts, took a look at Jeff Lynne (who was busy trimming his suave goatee and trying on his new pair of glittery disco pants) and said "We have got to do that again." Which is what they did, only this time Tom dragged the Heartbreakers into the sessions with him with the intent of applying Lynne's trademark candy-gloss (and golden disco-pimp lip gloss, of course) to his own full-band sound. The bandmembers weren't too fond of Lynne's particular production style; Stan Lynch for one didn't like the idea of drumming along to pre-programmed drum tracks and then being plopped into the final mix like some Lego or something. As a result, the album sounds a bit labored and mechanically-constructed when compared to Full Moon's carefree vibe, but it's still a perfectly enjoyable album thanks to a set of pretty and memorable melodies.
Like on Hard Promises (also a followup to a hit album), there isn't very much standout material, but the songwriting stays at a consistently "good" level throughout. The songs that everyone will recognize (since they're on Greatest Hits) are the jangly and flowing chime-fest hit "Learning To Fly" and the funny narrative title track (which sounds like a retelling of Petty's career, but was probably just made-up), but to tell you the truth, most of the remainder of the album is about as good. The songs are getting a bit more mannered and been-there-done-that than they had been before, but most of them have instantly-likeable elements that make them total winners, at least in my book. Hell, "King's Highway" and "The Dark Of The Sun" are practically the exact same song, but at least they're both the same awesome song (plus, the former has a great ending section, don't miss it!). Other great songs deck the halls with boughs of catchy too; "All Or Nothin'" has a fantastic bleak feel, kinda like a demented blues song inverted and turned into a pop song, and the closer "Built To Last" is a cool midtempo laidback stomper with an infectious chorus given the echoey treatment by Lynne.
The only problems come when the band tries to rock on the incredibly polished and featureless "Out In The Cold" and "Makin' Some Noise," Petty's two least favorite songs on the album and rightfully so (the former has got to be the most blatantly unoriginal song ever made - there is nothing in the song that hadn't already been done by about fifty other bands, so what's the freakin' point?). Plus, "All Of The Wrong Reasons" is a pretty blatant attempt to rewrite "Free Fallin'"("whoooa-oooa" background chants and all), though the song's main riff actually sounds right out of "Love On A Farmboy's Wages" by XTC (I doubt it was intentional) and the song is pretty decent anyway. Otherwise, this is a fine followup to Full Moon Fever, even if it's a bit lacking in substance and can't technically be considered a "followup" since Fever was a solo album. Stupid confusing perpetually-stoned-looking long-haired guy.
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What a great song "Learning to Fly" is. I still to this day think its the best track Tommy boy has ever done. Atmospheric, with the ambience of a 12 string acoustic guitar providing a good deal of the riffage.
(Rich Bunnell's review)
When Petty switched labels to Warner Bros. for Wildflowers, he was informed that he still owed MCA a greatest hits collection, and he reluctantly obliged by contributing a couple of new songs to the project. One of the songs, "Mary Jane's Last Dance," unexpectedly took off and became a mega-success (probably in large part due to its video, which starred Kim Basinger as a corpse that Tom the morgue worker falls in love with). I won't blame the masses this time, since the song is really catchy and has a unique feel that makes it sound both straight out of the '70s and modern at the same time. That's probably because it was allegedly ripped off, but who cares - nobody ever accused Tom of being creative anyway. At any rate, the compilation ended up becoming Tom's all-time top-seller, and ended up being owned by millions of pre-pubescent and teenage fans who had previously never heard of him. Go figure.
The collection hits on all of the really important songs from Petty's career up to that point and serves as a fantastic retrospective, including all of the huge radio singles ("Refugee," "Breakdown," "Don't Do Me Like That," "You Got Lucky," "Free Fallin'," "Learning To Fly") with a bunch of other lesser-but-still-hit singles rounding things out ("American Girl" "Runnin' Down A Dream," "Don't Come Around Here No More," "I Won't Back Down," "Even The Losers"). As a collection, it's basically perfect, though the other new song is a rather pointless cover of "Something In The Air" by Thunderclap Newman which could've been tossed off in favor of "Jammin' Me," a hit which is notably absent, or "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," which is usually associated more with Stevie Nicks but was actually written by Tom. Still, it's hard to go wrong with this collection, easily one of the best ever assembled. If you don't want to worry about collecting the individual albums, this is a fantastic buy. Plus, it's arranged chronologically, and it's really funny hearing Tom's voice mellow out more and more as the songs progress.
HIGH POINTS: Refugee, American Girl, Don't Come Around Here No More, Don't Do Me Like That, The Waiting, Free Fallin'. LOW POINTS: None.
At this point in his career, Tom Petty really had strung together so many hits on classic rock radio and MTV, both with The Heartbreakers and as a solo artist, so really, a greatest hits compilation was in order. Unsurprisingly, since he hasn't really gone through that many style changes throughout his career, and that many of the hits on here are really well-written, it should come as no surprise that the material from Tom (and his band) really work in a compilation setting. Simply put, this is one of the best and most effortlessly flowing hits collections I've heard. Maybe these aren't the most original songs in the world (several of these songs draws heavily from The Byrds and Dylan almost to the point of over-imitation), but they're extremely catchy, jankly, and really well-written compositions on the whole anyway. Sorry for not giving this one a 10, but that's just a general rule I have for most compilations ever made.
Anyway, on to the actual songs that are on here, arranged chronologically, starting with The Heartbreakers' debut in 1976 with "American Girl" (a really glorious jankly paradise with excitingly youthful vocals) and ending with two newly recorded tracks in the form of the quite well performed Dylan ripoff "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (which has a really kickass video in which Tom dances with a dead Kim Basinger) and a closing cover of Thunderclap Newman's "Something In The Air" (nice, though not really essential). In between are 16 other mostly prime tracks, the best of which is the truly anthemic, gloomy classic "Refugee" (which just rocks). Most of the mid-late 70's material here is strong, though, from the Byrdsy "Listen To Her Heart", the groove-based singalongs "Breakdown" and "Don't Do Me Like That" to the neat spoken piano led "Here Comes My Girl", the hopeful "Even The Losers" and the fast-paced "I Need To Know". Solid stuff.
The early 80's see Tom going through some slight (but only slight) changes amongst the more traditional jankly fare like "The Waiting", with the futuristic synth pop of "You Got Lucky" and the perfectly-constructed Eastern fueled, slightly experimental and catchy "Don't Come Around Here No More". Then in the late 80's he mellows out a little with the more 'laid back', acoustic based material in "I Won't Back Down", the fast-paced "Runnin' Down A Dream", and the nostalgic "Learning To Fly", also composing one of the coolest dumbass guitar parts ever ("Free Fallin'") in the process. And that 'musician's success to failure' story ("Into The Great Wide Open") is pretty damn good too. Yeah, there may be a few missing holes in here, but if you're not gonna pull a Rich Bunnell and go after all the albums, this is probably the best Petty money can buy.
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COMMENTS
I'm gonna have to go with Nick on this one---a 9, no higher. It is a phenomenal collection of songs, and is a constant favorite among friends. They did a nice job with the remastering, except for maybe "American Girl" which sounds fairly thin. However, I do not like "Refugee" or "Breakdown" one bit--these are two extremely annoying, cheesy radio staples that do nothing at all. Other than that though, you cant go wrong.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Petty parted ways with Jeff Lynne when Into The Great Wide Open didn't match the success of its predecessor, and for his second solo album he adopted a quieter, more reflective sound of the type that so many singer-songwriters adopt in their autumn years. The album is shrouded in slowly-paced, folksy balladry, though there are a few token upbeat numbers to keep fans of the raucous Petty sound content. On many levels, the album works - it probably has the best overall sound of any Petty album, casting away the gloss of the Lynne material and adopting a sound which is cozy, direct and homely without sounding too thin and spare like some of his '80s albums. If anything hurts the album, it's the length. The album, 15 songs long, drags on for a soul-sucking 62 minutes, and the slowly-paced nature of most of the material combined with the monstrous running times of some of the songs (several pass 5 minutes - once again, remember, this is Tom Petty we're talking about - that's like "Supper's Ready" length for him) make this quite an exhausting listen compared to the brevity of any of the preceding albums.
When the album works, however, it really, really works. The title track, "Time To Move On" and "A Higher Place" are all charming and simple strum-fests, even if the last one sounds a bit like Talking Heads' "And She Was" (once again, I seriously doubt it was intentional, unless Tom is a closet Byrne fanatic). The hit singles (three of them - why did Petty solo albums always spawn more hits than most of the Heartbreakers ones?) are all majestic - the clomping "You Don't Know How It Feels" has a simple and direct feel that makes the harmonies on the chorus just sound more warm and full (plus it added another amusing music video to Petty's canon), "It's Good To Be King" is a simple ballad which benefits from gorgeous string fills, and "You Wreck Me" is a rather simplistic riff-rocker (it sounds like it has maybe three chords, correct me if I'm wrong) but it's really really fun and manages to give the album a shot in the arm before going off on an endless parade of slower numbers.
So really, the album does have quite a bit of fantastic material on it, which makes the album more than worth buying. It just would've been nice if Petty had trimmed it a bit and thrown off lame snail-paced bluesy songs like "Honey Bee," generic Dylan ripoffs like "Don't Fade On Me" or endless bore-fests like "House In The Woods." Just because the CD format allows more space doesn't mean you have to fill it, Tom. I will give the album some credit, though, as it was the first CD I ever bought used. Until then I naively bought everything retail; in fact I actually had a $17 copy of this album ready to purchase when my dad directed me to the used section of the store and I found it for around $8. In other words, this album changed my freaking life.
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COMMENTS
I know i said this somewhere before, but "You Wreck Me"'s verse riff rips off Stone Temple Pilots "Wicked Garden". Strange, but true. Listen to both side by side. I dont really have a problem with that; i just think its funny how people always say STP was based on ripping other bands off, and nobody ever notices bands ripping STP off.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Filmmaker/actor Edward Burns approached Tom in 1996 asking if Tom could contribute a song or two to his romantic comedy She's The One, and apparently Tom was so impressed by the film that he decided to compose the entire soundtrack. Who would turn an offer like that down? I haven't seen the movie, so I'll keep my unresearched opinion to myself about how Tom was probably less impressed by the script than he was turned on by the tittilating presence of Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz in a single movie and say that the material on this album is very reminiscent of Wildflowers, but since it's technically a full-fledged Heartbreakers album it rocks a little harder and covers a little more stylistic ground. It's not a bonafide album, per se, as a couple of instrumental interludes and repeated songs keep it from having a distinct flow like a regular-issue Petty album would, but when you get right down to it, there's just as much Heartbreakers music on this album as on Damn The Torpedoes, so I'll call it whatever I damn well please.
It's pretty clear that the material on this album was hastily-written - the songs sound more simple and off-the-cuff than anything on the prior three albums, and Tom even throws on a couple of well-chosen cover tunes (Lucinda Williams' "Change The Locks" and Beck's "Asshole"), something he never usually does on an album (I can't imagine it's very tough for Petty to come up with tunes on a regular basis). The hit single was the glorious exception to this rule - "Walls" is an overproduced, poppy monster of a single with gorgeous jangly guitar backing, a fantastic hook in the chorus and the ever-reliable Lindsey Buckingham guesting on multitracked harmony vocals. It's not very representative of the rest of the album, which switches from clapping acoustic balladry ("Angel Dream") to profane rip-roaring riff-rock ("Zero From Outer Space") at the drop of a hat, but for the most part does it competently and enjoyably.
What else is there to say? It's not the most substantial Petty collection out there, and a couple of the more standard-sounding rock tunes are beyond dull ("Supernatural Radio" and "Hung Up And Overdue" in particular) but the entire album has a really appealing and diverse feel that makes it worthwhile in the end. Plus, you can get it for like 3 bucks on eBay or half.com. I call that a bargain - the best I ever had.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Technically, this album was the first actual Heartbreakers album released since 1991, since Wildflowers was a solo album and She's The One was a soundtrack. It was recorded after Tom divorced his wife of 20 years, and for that reason it gave critics fodder to peg this as Tom's "depressed, solitary album," but this isn't to say that the album is filled with downcast Sister Lovers-type music - musically, it sounds pretty much like every other album he's made for the past decade. Lyrically, it's a different story - lines like "It's the same sad echo when you lie/it's the same sad echo when you try to be clear" and "You need rhino skin, if you're gonna pretend/You're not hurt in this world" are quite a bit more dour than anything Tom had penned before this album. Still, don't pop in this album expecting any serious departures from Petty, because you're not gonna find them.
The difference between this album and the ones that came before it is its pure presence - almost every song sounds like Tom wrote it for a reason, and most of them grab your ears a lot more than, say, "Supernatural Radio." The opener "Room At The Top" is easily one of the most profound (okay, profound-sounding - "I've got a room at the top of the world tonight and I ain't comin' down" isn't exactly Socrates) songs Tom has ever written, building from a humble acoustic opening to a powerful, towering electric climax without seeming pompous at all. "Swingin'" is a direct and chilling tune with murky guitar and organ backing, and a bit of a generic melody but an effective one (Tom performed it on Saturday Night Live, looking as unshaven and stoned as ever). The pretty six-minute ballad title track is one of the few long Petty songs that actually manages to justify its length, and "Rhino Skin," easily one of the best songs on the album, has a really creepy and layered sound that helps push the lyrics (quoted above, and some of Petty's best) to the forefront while still being melodically captivating.
Of course, the Heartbreakers still get a chance to rock out - "Won't Last Long" and "About To Give Out" are two of Tom's catchiest guitar rockers, and the latter even has a hick reference to Davy Crockett to affirm the band's Southern roots. Mike Campbell even gets to contribute a song, the headbanging "I Don't Wanna Fight," one of the most brainless Heartbreakers songs ever and propelled to pure glory by Mike's hilariously nasal vocal delivery (more nasal than Tom's late-'70s voice, and that's pretty friggin' nasal). The album's only really weak link is the pre-release single "Free Girl Now," a supposed ode to Jerry Hall (the song is about a woman who escapes her domineering husband, and there are a couple of Stones references in the lyrics) based on a repetitive, been-there-done-that melody which is easily one of the most boring uptempo melodies Tom has ever written. Otherwise, it's a very consistent collection and probably Tom's best since Full Moon Fever. Plus, Tom got happily remarried in June 2001. Huzzah!
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The first Heartbreakers album in fifteen years to be released consecutively after another Heartbreakers album sounds.... well...like.... y'know... a Heartbreakers album. The only difference is that all of the press releases claim that this is it, it's finally come, Tom's Big-Ass Statement against the evils of the record industry - he's finally gone and done it, he's snatched the hand that feeds him and he's gonna bite down hard. Admittedly this is pretty damn stupid when you consider that this is directly off of a press statement issued by Warner Brothers, one of the biggest and most wealthy and corporate record companies in America. Plus, didn't Tom already rail against the record industry twenty years ago? You know, when he wasn't a millionaire raking in vast amounts of dough from incessant classic rock overplay and nationwide arena tours? I know that it's a cliche to say that everyone loves an angry young man, but nobody loves an angry old man, but it's true - it's a statement against Big Money fueled by Big Money encapsulated by a guy who has quite a bit of this Big Money himself. I'm sure it's genuine, but it's a message probably best left to someone else less likely to be branded a total hypocrite.
It doesn't really matter anyway, though, because (1) the album still manages to sound exactly like every other post-Lynne Heartbreakers album, and (2) this domineering, raging anti-corporate theme shows up in... um...three songs. Out of twelve. And on the three songs where it does show up, it's generally not too irritating and didactic, with one mega-big-ass exception. I once thought "The Smartest Monkeys" by XTC was the least subtle composition I'd ever heard until I heard "Joe." It was one thing in 1979 when Tom, in the midst of a battle against MCA, wrenchingly declared "Everybody's got to fight to be free!" but something about taking on the role of a greedy record company CEO and shouting "YOU GET TO BE FAMOUS, I GET TO BE RICH!" in the listener's face just doesn't sit well with me, especially when the actual music is the most annoying bilge that the guy's crapped out since "Honey Bee." The other two songs are fine with me, though - the title track is a decent jangle-rocker and ironically enough practically a ready-made radio hit, and though the title is a bit cringeworthy, the strings on "Money Becomes King" do a great job of hammering in a tense, uneasy atmosphere.
As far as the rest of the album is concerned, you can pretty much just cut-and-paste the more okay-to-good songs from the last few Petty albums as long as you change the lyrics and titles so nobody will notice. It's standard-issue Heartbreakers music, good if not amongst the best the guy has ever written. Still, I get my kicks from "Dreamville," possibly Tom's best and prettiest song of the '90s (don't worry, in a couple more years I'll get used to the decade change), and "The Man Who Loves Women" is like Tom's take on "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life," except without the chorus line of crucified British comedians and with an unshaven, nasal Gatorland emigrant in place of Eric Idle. The rest isn't great, but 'taint bad either, and certainly not evidence of the Second Coming of Billy Joel's Atilla like the All Music Guide is claiming for some random reason.
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