does tom petty have any redeeming qualities?

"wait, we're talking about the guy that did that fuckin We Come From A Land Down Under song, right?"

nobody's claiming Bryan Adams is better than Tom Petty. What's being claimed is that Tom Petty is a better Bryan Adams.

men at work were pretty tight too

"wait, we're talking about the guy that did that fuckin We Come From A Land Down Under song, right?"

Unfair. Men at Work also did Overkill, which is teh great.

and "It's a Mistake."

I'm listening to "Learning to Fly" right now. Oh the memories of early 90's LA malls...

and "It's a Mistake."

Yes! Johnny Be Good, too.

Men at Work are better than Tom Petty, John Cougar and Bryan Adams put together.

hahaha

Another one for the ILM FAQ.

I heard a recent song from Colin Hay (men at work singer) and was totally impressed! Let me see if I can youtube it for you guys.

hahaha Steve Shasta watches Scrubs

scrubs is funny

NOOOOOOOOO I DON'T WATCH SCRUBS!

Some weird chick I met from NYC who works for MTV 0put it on a mix for me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tcRlHY-3Q

I thought the voice sounded familiar. But what interested is that the guitar playing is straight up Uncle Tupelo circa Jay Farrar's songs on Still Feel Gone.

...by Uncle Tupelo.

hahaha, i shouldn't post when I'm on the phone.

OK, as a result of this thread I just got a hold of a Carlene Carter album produced by Howie Epstein, so maybe some good will come of it.

it's supposed to be decent!

like I wrote upthread, I can't recommend the Epstein-helmed Prine albums highly enough.

Another one for the ILM FAQ.

THANK YOU. May I add that Men at Work are also better than LED ZEPPLIN and BOSTON combined. (n.1)

_______________________________
(n.1) Actually, I was kidding in this and the original post. I do like Men at Work, tho.

the original question could have been answered with a quick "no". i love the extrapolation but other threads deserve it more.

Lock thread.

Seconded

yeah let's get extrapolating on the 700 poll threads about terrorizer poll results

agreed

i do like a lot of his songs but by no means does he warrant this much discussion, positive or negative.

xp!

i love the extrapolation complaints that something isn't worth discussing, but other threads deserve it more.

It's fun to talk about Tom Petty, I think Michael Ian Black forgot to.

haha ok well ... bryan adams sounds like a canadian ... guy ... who wanted ... to get laid ...

B-b-but he fucked Princss Diana!

...or Princess Diana as she's more commonly known.

Carlene Carter album pretty good.

It's not bad. But the best song on it is one she first recorded 28 years ago, for whatever that's worth.

We talking about the same album, I Fell In Love?

that colin hay song is pretty good! it's at least as good as iron and wine and stuff like that that's big in indie circles

that colin hay song is pretty good! it's at least as good as iron and wine and stuff like that that's big in indie circles

Hey hey hey hey, easy there.

We talking about the same album, I Fell In Love?

I guess not! I'm talking about Stronger, out March 4 on Yep Roc.

Princss Diana has such great style sheets.

HAD *pow*

But hey James, this is about the Carlene Carter album you got -- from the rolling country 2006 thread (parts of which also ended up on a Cock Robin thread yesterday, coincidentally enough):

carlene carter *i fell in love* 1990 $2.99 (title track sounds familiar, so i guess maybe it was a hit? it also sounds like a nick lowe song, though he apparently didn't write it)
-- xhuxk, Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:04 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

I think Carlene's "I Fell In Love" was written by Al Anderson, ex-NRBQ; at least, he and she were having a rave-up with it, when I saw 'em on Austin City Limits (so astonished I forgot to hit "Record"). He's written a lot of other good songs too.
-- don, Sunday, March 26, 2006 9:21 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

actual songwriting credit is: Carlene Carter/Howie Epstein/Benmont Tench/Perry Lamek. ("The Sweetest Thing" on that album gives partical credit to Robert Ellis Orrall, who I've brought up a couple times on this thread. And more interestingly, "The Leavin' Side" gives partial credit to one Tom Gray: I wonder if that's the same guy who used to lead the Brains, of "Money Changes Everything" fame! They were Southerners, from Atlanta, right? So it wouldn't have been out of the question for him to go the country songwriting route.)
-- xhuxk, Sunday, March 26, 2006 10:44 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

The Carlene Carter album I bought seems consisently kinda fun but never quite fun *enough*, at least so far. Maybe I wish her poppabilly was more rockabilly, "The Sweetest Thing" is slow, and could amost be a Lorrie Morgan hit from around that time; "Goodnight Dallas," which I like more than most of the tracks, has mariachi horns and yodels, so it's "western" I guess. I'm still waiting for at least one track though to jump out at me. --
xhuxk, Sunday, April 9, 2006 3:27 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

and "lonely nights." he had his moments

OTM I haven't heard this song in probably 20 years but iirc it is played entirely in the key of win.

What's up with hating Tom Petty?

Like Christgau seems to think he's like the worst human ever.

yes. God, just have a beer and try to get head like everybody else

(I have a living room's worth of ladies, chatting and I'm a not terribly *yawn* inclined to engage in anything resembling civilized banter.)

Still, you got the word order rearrangement thing going.

i think xgau suspects petty of reactionary tendencies. which is fair enough. he needs to be understood in the context of southern rock as much as california rock.

but petty was a lot more tuned in than i think people give him credit for. the whole "new wave" thing, he wasn't new wave but he had a kind of new wave energy. he loved mtv. he hooked up with dave stewart. he was kind of a fellow traveler. and he was chiming guitars a few years before r.e.m. and the edge and so forth. he really fits into that era.

plus grace jones covered him. should count for something.

"Damn The Torpedoes" is smack full of great tunes, and "Into The Great Wide Open" isn't far behind (plus it has excellent production work by Jeff Lynne in addition).

, he wasn't new wave but he had a kind of new wave energy

Well, on those first couple albums, he sounded totally powerpop -- a lot closer to the Records or Nick Lowe or Bram Tchaicovksy than to the Eagles or Molly Hatchet or Jackson Browne. (One thing that seemed to bug Christgau early on is that, in live shows, Petty acted less new wave than on record: "Onstage, he acts like he wants to be Ted Nugent when he grows up, pulling out the cornball arena-rock moves as if they had something to do with the kind of music he makes." Which I'm guessing actually made his live shows less boring -- in the same review, Xgau says what made bands like the Byrds great "was that they just got up there and played," which may or may not be true, and sounds like a snooze either way -- but we all have our preferences, I guess.)

^^^ This. That's why Tom Petty's early stuff (e.g., "You Got Lucky") kills his later stuff (which, to me, is listless, by-the-numbers nu-classic rock).

[And I bet if you read a Creem review of his stuff around that time, they'd be more likely to mention him in relation to, say, Dwight Twilley than either California rock or Southern rock. So in 1978 he wasn't exactly new wave, but he was for sure on the borderline of it -- like Cheap Trick, or the Cars.]

The fact that he (allegedly) lip-synced his Super Bowl performance makes me love him more:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-petty_0204gl.ART.State.Edition2.4531d76.html