does tom petty have any redeeming qualities?

At least one of the other quotes in the wikipedia entry is so outrageously rockist that if I were to paste it here I think it would make people's eyes bleed.

x-p:

so then what is a rocker touring with a giant rebel flag the ilm equivalent of?

i mean, i love tom petty, but i'm not defending that.

"About to Give Out" is fantastic late Petty and a classic old guys rocking out hellraiser. We need more of them.

He smokes weed...

Vocally, he sounded incredible. I don't think he's sounded that good in about 25 years.

I thought the show was well-performed but boring. Good job to him for doing what he does well; I just don't like what he does.

Me? I'm not a fan of the Nu Country.

I was surprised that he slagged Boston.

He was new wave then; he had to slag Boston. (Honest -- he even had songs included on "new wave" compilation albums.)

Anyway, didn't watch the Super Bowl thing. But I still have nothing against the guy, even if his albums have been mostly useless for the past couple decades, even longer than albums by Cougar (who is still way, way better, career-wise.)

(Well, okay, guess I could see owning Full Moon Fever from '89; that's technically two years later than The Lonesome Jubilee. So I'll give him that. But I've always figured the Greatest Hits CD would make owning Full Moon Fever redundant. And Cougar's early/mid '80s beat Petty's early/mid '80 by several miles.)

ilx never tires of picking on aging rockers...

Most of them deserve it. (Then again, so do most young rockers. And most aging and young non-rockers, too.)

some excellent singles, thus the greatest hits compilation plays very nicely
don't think i really have the patience to sit through his studio records though.

i liked the outrageously fecund imagery of the gibson flying-v guitar outline swerving towards the open and waiting heart outline, which exploded into flames the moment the guitar "penetrated" it

first prince with his guitar-cock last year, now simulated neon intercourse with a flying v - next year's going to be crazy

I thought it was great, but I like all those songs. At different points it looked like there were no fewer than 6 guitarists onstage at once (7 necks total).

One of those balearic dudes does a crazy dub edit of "Don't Come Around Here No More."

Anyway, yeah, I am definitely surprised by the Petty hatred on here. But then, I'm a definite rockist (who happens to like dance music (aka "but several of my closest friends are minorities")).

Petty's double-disc comp is as solid as Mellencamp's, although JCM produced better albums.

haha i'm kind of the reverse. i think petty has better albums (i like damn the torpedoes and long after dark both better than any jcm album), but i might give jcm's best-of the edge.

Better than any Petty album, easy:

American Fool
Uh-Huh
Scarecrow

Better than any Petty album except maybe Damn the Torpedoes (a close call, but I honestly think I'd go with the Cougar records):

Nothin' Matters and What If It Did
John Cougar
The Lonesome Jubilee

Better than any Petty album except the first three (and quite possibly better than Petty's first two):

The Kid Inside

Vocally, he sounded incredible. I don't think he's sounded that good in about 25 years.

Did anybody else think he sounded really processed, though?

ugh, i think he's abt as bad as it gets. whenever i hear his voice i feel the life force seeping out of me.

so then what is a rocker touring with a giant rebel flag the ilm equivalent of? i mean, i love tom petty, but i'm not defending that.

That's pretty much indefensible. I remember at the time (1985? 1986? Southern Accents tour) he tried to defend it along the lines of "I'm proud to be from the south." R.E.M. said something like, "Hey, so are we, but you don't see us with a fucking confederate flag."

I like Tom Petty a lot, but the rebel flag's gotta go.

petty is a bro hands-down

poor j0hn d upthread feels like he has to apologize for defending petty's guitar playing!

if bryan adams kissed ass he'd be tom petty

his mistake was to make nice with tina turner rather than bob dylan

wtf @ bryan adams comparisons

like he wouldn't have killed to write "Summer Of '69."

except petty wrote tons of songs that great and adams only wrote one

I'm trying to think of a second-tier Wilburys: Bryan Adams, Ted Nugent, Frankie Valli, Mickey Dolenz, and Bill Wyman.

petty's definitely better at writing bryan adams songs than bryan adams is, but they're in the same fuckin genre of mewly radio-single guitar-pop. one guy just settled into AC ballad retirement while Petty kept it "real," got pally with Ringo.

I'd pick John Entswhistle over Wyman.

that documentary of petty that was just out blew my mind cuz i didn't know that mike campbell wrote BOYS OF SUMMER which sort of took away my one thing i always defended don henley with.

one guy just settled into AC ballad retirement while Petty kept it "real," got pally with Ringo.

petty was having hits with actual good songs like mary jane and you don't know how it feels, hits w/ppl that couldn't have given 2 fucks about the wilbury shit....

I like the Heartbreakers fine! Howie Epstein produced two excellent John Prine records; Stan Lynch co-wrote the only other Henley song I can give a damn about ("The Last Worthless Evening").

...around the same time Bryan was having bigger hits with have you ever loved a woman and please forgive me. its the wilbury/down with jann wenner shit that just kept him getting to put out non-hit crap like The Last DJ while Adams was stuck in a less classy-by-acclamation context.

if Bryan Adams, Donovan, John Entswhistle, Frankie Valli and Barry Gibb made an album I'd be all over that shit.

x-post, obv

Barry Gibb would be an EXCELLENT sub for Jeff Lynne – he's even got a better beard!

also a better songwriter

Tom's <i>Greatest Hits</i> >>>>> Bryan's <i>So Far So Good</i> but I always find it ridiculous when TP's treated like some revered icon of class solidarity because he grouses about his pretensions now rather than singing with barbara streisand.

Gotta love Petty for playing the bat mitzvah of a defense contractor's daughter, though.

I think 99% of songwriters would have killed to have written "Summer of '69"

bryan adams tina turner bob dylan Ringo Wyman jann wenner Donovan John Entswhistle Frankie Valli Barry Gibb barbara streisand

i like some of those guys

shoulda stuck Colin Meloy in there to see if we're paying attention

I might take Reckless over Damn the Torpedoes myself (and "Cuts Like A Knife" is up there with all but the very best Petty songs).

Either way, people who like Tom Petty's and Bryan Adams's hits really ought to check out This Is It, the country album last year by Jack Ingram, a better Tom Petty album and a better Bryan Adams album than either of them have made in eons.

it's too bad tom petty didn't write more soul-destroyingly normalized MOR region-free white-bread pop songs about the high school and post-high school experience

"EVEN THE LOSERS" DUDE

anyway tom petty was really boring last night but i barely paid attention after the guitar raped the heart at the beginning. i like his greatest hits album and wildflowers a lot. i like him about as much as JCM.

You could debate whether Kenny Aaronoff makes JC better or if the staggering depth of the Coog's need to be taken seriously makes him worse, but at this point they both need to stfu and play the song they wrote twenty years ago about fighting authority.

as a friend said last night, "If Coog had been asked to play you can bet your ass he'd have done `Jack & Diane' as a bluegrass number."

aw, I saw him play some turkey day football game a few years ago and he just did one pretentious new "What Price Sweet America's Freedom" song, ROCK In The USA and some other oldie

So many of Petty's songs (actually, more "hits") are so bitter and corrosive, you'd have thought that Jess would have been more of a fan.

you mean "whiny."