Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ first album of the new millennium takes aim at the changing tides of the music industry. In a way, the wayward music reflects these changes. It’s also the final album they made with producer Rick Rubin and bassist Howie Epstein. It’s the only Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers record to feature a lead vocal by someone other than Petty (guitarist Mike Campbell sings one). Generally, it’s a forgettable mess with a handful of good songs that gets lost in the sludge.Įcho is an album of firsts and lasts. Some of the songs were Wildflowers leftovers some were covers.
The soundtrack to a Jennifer Aniston movie nobody remembers, She’s the One didn’t fare too well for Petty and the Heartbreakers either. 'Song and Music From' "She's The One" - 1996 A change of pace that affected the next two decades. Petty’s second solo album (following Full Moon Fever) is closer to a one-man show this time. Wildflowers is Petty’s rootsiest and most stripped-down album, a reaction of sorts to the Jeff Lynne-produced pop gloss of Fever and Into the Great Wide Open. Petty and the Heartbreakers were one of the best touring bands on the planet by this time. Jeff Lynne is back, and he coats the album in a pop polish that heightens the songs’ melodies. Still, some songs are keepers, even if the four stars seem to be serving as each other’s backing groups for much of it.Ī near sequel to Full Moon Fever, but with the Heartbreakers on board for the entire record this time. He’s missed here, as is the sense of tossed-off joy that was all over the first record. Roy Orbison died between the Traveling Wilburys’ two albums (despite the title, Vol. The result is some of the best music of Petty’s career: tough, funny, resilient and almost defiant in its determination to not be beaten down. Everyone joins in on the fun, with egos rarely getting in the way.Īfter the soggy Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), Petty returned with his first solo album - which pretty much sounds like a Heartbreakers album with some assistance from Jeff Lynne.
The ’80s update does them no favors, but a strong comeback was right around the corner.īetween one of his most disappointing Heartbreakers albums and his career-reviving first solo LP, Petty got together with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison for the Traveling Wilburys, which jump-started the creative lives of everyone involved. After a bruising few years, an exhausting tour and a shifting industry, Petty and the Heartbreakers sound beaten and almost defeated on their seventh album, which included a co-write with Bob Dylan.
Some of those themes are retained in the best songs, but Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart was brought in as producer for a couple tracks, spinning them toward the freak-out “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ most underrated album started life as a concept record about the south. “You Got Lucky” made them MTV stars, but the album goes deeper than that. The songs are there.Īfter the troubled Hard Promises, Petty and the Heartbreakers’ fifth album is a lean rock ‘n’ roll record, filled with some of the band’s most underrated songs (like “Change of Heart” and “Straight Into Darkness”). If the rest of it doesn’t immediately sink in like the best Petty records, give it time. “The Waiting” is here, and it’s a great album opener. but Damn the Torpedoes remains their masterpiece.īehind-the-scenes battles with his record company shaped the direction of Hard Promises, the follow-up to the breakthrough Damn the Torpedoes. Almost every single song here is a classic - from the opening drum roll that ushers in “Refugee” to the epic sweep of the closing “Louisiana Rain.” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made some great later albums. The breakthrough record and the album that made Petty a star. Still, tracks like “I Need to Know” and “Listen to Her Heart” hinted at things to come. They were starting to find an identity here but were still a year away from their breakthrough moment. The Heartbreakers’ second album is a lot like the first, a combination of rock, pop and New Wave songs. Were they a New Wave group? A rock ‘n’ roll band? A throwback to ’60s pop? They were a little bit of all these things and more, and they were just getting started. Nobody was sure where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fell on the music spectrum when their debut album was released in 1976. Have a look at a timeline of his discography starting from 1976 all the way through to 2016. Petty had a bloody blinder of a career that had a lot of ups and downs but that's what makes an artist career that spans four decades of great music so incredible. Tom Petty's discography with the Heartbreakers, as a solo artist, and with side projects like Travelling Wilbury's and Mudcrutch.