YOU RANK ME BABY, YEAH YOU RATE ME 1-2 - ILM Artist Poll #71 - Tom Petty (results)

I wonder how much of his longevity can be attributed to Petty's enthusiastic embrace of videos as a format, his career fortunes track pretty closely to the rise and fall of video culture

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 15 December 2015 00:15 (4 minutes ago) Permalink

Also his willingness to be a low-key, amused weirdo in his videos instead of an aging guy doing rock star moves.

yeah they're all very narrative-driven, with him as the narrator but not necessarily the "star"

for a tossed-off track thrown onto a greatest hits collection, "last dance" has proven to be astonishingly durable. a lot of guitar players have driven themselves nuts chasing that tone (probably AC30 but not documented afaik)

does anyone else hear it as an older, wearier "american girl"?

Re: music videos, it's really amazing how petty navigated multiple decades, managing to be both "classic rock" and "new wave" (as confusing as that term was in the late 70s), kinda fusing it almost

I assumed that everyone loved it, and that it would cruise into the top ten.

i loved "Mary Jane's Last Dance" at the time, it definitely helped motivate me to by the Greatest Hits CD, but it just barely made it onto the tail end of my ballot. it amused me that another Rick Rubin-produced hit (RHCP's "Dani California") was widely thought to be distractingly similar to "Last Dance" but Rubin is so famously hands-off about the actual songwriting that nobody even bothered to fault him for it.

http://www.tbs.com/videos/cougar-town/season-6/episode-13/mary-janes-last-dance.html

http://i.imgur.com/dCMnivd.jpg

25. Learning to Fly - 143 points (8 votes)
http://youtu.be/s5BJXwNeKsQ

xpost Looks like consensus is Tele/Nocaster (Campbell's guitar) played by Petty through an AC30.

happy that "Learning To Fly" showed up, i was starting to worry it wouldn't after several other '90s singles already placed. i swear that like 30 different country hits in the past decade have the same chords as "Learning," so many Petty vibes on country radio.

http://www.tbs.com/videos/cougar-town/season-5/episode-6/learning-to-fly.html

those into the great wide open singles are so slow

For some reason I think Lana Del Rey could do a good "MJLD" cover.

In Shakey, McDonough says that "YDKHIF" is the "Great Ersatz [Neil Young] record. It is like everything you wished Young's later laid-back stuff would be like.

I didn't vote for either. Both good though.

for all the talk of Lynnenification on those early '90s albums "Learning to Fly" sure sounds a lot like an Eagles tune.

The Eagles would never have that great of a drum break.

it amuses me that "Learn[ing] To Fly" is the title of one of the most innocuous radio staples by Tom Petty, Pink Floyd, AND Foo Fighters.

Dave Grohl said at the time that his "Learn..." song was an attempt to write a Petty-style Rockin' Pop track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYhYOdsqK5Y

I've always wondered if Paul Westerberg was amused or annoyed by the blatant thievery of the "rebel without a clue" line.

Oh wait, that's on Into the Great Wide Open, isn't it? I always confuse those two songs -- same laid-back midtempo vibe.

that's "into the great wide open" and it's one of the reasons I don't love it

"learning to fly" has grown on me a lot though. apparently my allergy to that shiny acoustic rhythm track has eased up.

Going from "rebel without a cause" to "rebel without a clue" isn't much of a clever leap or anything. If Westerberg was the first to ever do it I'd be surprised.

Apparently Jim Steinman did it first, though I doubt Westerberg stole it from him. Right, not hard to come up with. But Petty was touring with the Replacements when that was their quasi-hit, there's no way he didn't pick it up from them. Not that it matters much, it was just a little weird.

From an AV Club Westerberg interview: I'd steal something back from him, if I could find something I liked.

quality zing but also LIES

For some reason, I really hate that descending 3-chord progression during the 'rebel without a clue' part. I blame smash mouth.

Paul knows he stole it from somewhere too.

"Learning to Fly" may be my absolute least favorite of Petty's hits. Something about it just feels so lazy to me, and not in the good way.

Thematically and musically, it feels like the rebound of "Free Fallin'."

there's a song on ITGWO called "All the Wrong Reasons" that's closer to a "Free Fallin'" retread.

xp It seems like it takes all the worst elements of that and "I Won't Back Down" and combines them in the least effective ways. I know when he worked with Lynne the whole idea was to work in a different, more spontaneous way and not overthink everything, but LTF just doesn't work for me. (Actually the whole ITGWO album is my least favorite.)

https://i.imgur.com/GyhNrKG.jpg

24. Wildflowers - 155 points (9 votes)
http://youtu.be/AldoDm2bV04

Love this. It's one I find myself singing in my head a lot. One of those deceptively simple songs that felt classic the first time I heard it.

so fun to play on the guitar

nice song. i don't really rate Wildflowers, but if Petty had had to make it 20 minutes shorter to fit on vinyl it would've been pretty strong. the '90s gave us so many overlong CDs from people who used to make concise albums.

Completely arbitrary recap:

40. Casa Dega
39. A One Story Town (tied)
39. Kings Highway (tied)
38. A Thing About You
37. A Face in the Crowd
36. Something Big
35. Time to Move On
34. The Wild One, Forever
33. Nightwatchman
32. Love is a Long Road
31. Walls
30. Dogs on the Run
29. You Don’t Know How It Feels
28. Insider
27. Runaway Trains
26. Southern Accents (tied)
26. Mary Jane’s Last Dance (tied)
25. Learning To Fly
24. Wildflowers

a lot of songs I don't know at all so far tbh

listen to em! they're good!

Based on the middling placement of Runaway Trains, it would appear that the Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) album is gonna get robbed.

Anyone doing a spotify list yet?

Based on the middling placement of Runaway Trains, it would appear that the Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) album is gonna get robbed.

― kornrulez6969,

"Jammin' Me" might show.

I had the same reaction to "Wildflowers" the moment I heard it: it's a classic. Apparently he wrote and recorded it in one sitting.

spotify list goes up when we hit 21 :-)

http://i.imgur.com/nKZqMnV.jpg

23. Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid) - 156 points (6 votes, one #1)
http://youtu.be/1pdscKJp_58

Apparently he wrote and recorded it in one sitting.

it sounds like it. it seems unlikely that a line like "who compaaaaaaaaaaares with you" would've survived a second sitting. fucking love this song. the wild flowers, forever.

Surprised "Shadow of a Doubt" is so high, but I guess that one #1 vote gave it a kick. I didn't vote for it, but it's pretty great. (If I was gonna vote for a non-hit from Torpedoes, I would've gone with "Louisiana Rain," which is the Dirty South song Southern Accents never matched.)

"shadow of a doubt" snuck up higher on my ballot than I expected, but I wasn't the #1. great representative of the "don't bore us, get to the chorus!" ethos and a nice little rocker.

http://i.imgur.com/IIm4aTb.jpg

22. Yer So Bad - 157 points (7 votes, one #1)
http://youtu.be/WdRViFCvvUo

http://www.tbs.com/videos/cougar-town/season-6/episode-10/yer-so-bad.html

had no idea there was so much love for "yer so bad." i don't think i ever even realized it was a single with a video and everything...

http://i.imgur.com/RCwIst2.jpg

21. Crawling Back to You - 170 points (7 votes, one #1)
http://youtu.be/gxsKi9MD6Bs

god I love this song