does tom petty have any redeeming qualities?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (737 of them)

Odd that there's no mention of "You Wreck Me" — classic. And I'm totally amazed by the guy's consistency, to be honest.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"Walls" is for me the sleeper Petty masterpiece. "You got a heart so big / It could crush this town", with its phrasing, seems pure gold to me.

― southern lights (southern lights), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

i spent a month driving around europe in a crammed splitter van, and if i hadn't had my tom petty favorites mix then i would have strangled someone or jumped off an alp.

― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

xgau's review of Greatest Hits sums it up for me. His other Tom Petty reviews are pretty dead on too.

Greatest Hits [MCA, 1993]
Sometimes it's hard to remember what a breath of fresh air the gap-spanning MTV figurehead was in 1976. So revisit this automatic multiplatinum, a treasury of power pop that doesn't know its name--snappy songs! Southern beats! gee! Like Billy Joel, say, or the Police, his secret isn't that he's a natural singles artist--it's that he's too shallow to merit full concentration except when he gets it all right, and maybe not then. Petty is the formalist of the ordinary guy, taking his musical pleasure in roots, branches, commerce, art, whatever gets him going without demanding anything too fancy of his brain or his rear end. Footloose by habit and not what you'd call a ladies' man, he often feels confused or put upon, and though he wishes the world were a better place, try to take what he thinks is his and he won't back down. He has one great virtue--his total immersion in rock and roll. A-

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, he can be supremely annoying, but his "Greatest Hits" LP is worth owning.

"American Girl" = Best non-Byrds Byrds song EVAH

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Personal Tom Petty POX:
Runaway Trains
Don't Come Around Here No More
A Face In The Crowd
The Waiting
Free Fallin'
There Goes My Girl
American Girl
Refugee
Walls
I Won't Back Down

I stand by what I wrote about Full Moon Fever on my blog about a year ago.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

argh link to said blog entry here. best passive-aggressive boomer dad I can think of.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

actually i'm kinda suprised i ever cared enough about this thread topic to start it

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

that xgau review OTM.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I really like "Spike".

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm surprised this thread was started before he turned truly evil with The Last DJ. Buddyhead gave him props for hating radio now that his new stuff isn't on it. I hate when indie asshole rags make the mistake of telling us who they respect.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

'running down a dream' has that sweet guitar riff in the chorus. 'american girl' a great song all around. 'i won't back down' is defiant and semi-inspiring and shit. 'refugee' is totally not bad and doesn't make me want to change the radio station.

― 6335, Friday, 10 September 2004 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I assume Buddyhead was being sarcastic.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

sadly, very, sadly, they weren't.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Nope. They were not.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

their review of the Last DJ, which got their highest rating, consists solely of this:

Tom Petty is awesome.
--Travis Keller

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

from their gossip page when the album came out: Tom Petty is pissed. His new album, as always, totally rules. Buy it. Besides bringing the rock, he’s dropping mad knowledge. Props to mtv.com for showing some balls for once and putting up Tom’s rant on their site besides the latest word on who Britney Spears is dating. This is important enough for you to read the whole thing…
The man who told the world "I Won't Back Down," "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Don't Come Around Here No More" doesn't need any assertiveness-training course. Tom Petty's determined, sometimes defiant attitude has collided with the music business throughout the years. For instance, in 1982 Petty recorded Hard Promises with the Heartbreakers, only to find that his then-record company had plans to use his name to initiate a new, higher $9.98 list price for albums. Petty withheld the tapes and threatened to retitle his record $8.98 in protest.

That same spirit is alive and well on Petty's latest album, The Last DJ, which takes a hard look at the lack of moral grounding in the music business. The title track has kicked up considerable controversy, with some radio stations seeing the song as a slap in the face and banning it. But Petty is not just biting the hand that feeds him. Music is only the beginning of what's pissing him off these days. "The Last DJ is a story about morals more than the music business," he says. "It's really about vanishing personal freedoms."

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

they should read Lester Bangs' essay about why that fuckin' dollar from Tom Petty back when was pure bullshit.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

if Bryan Adams flipped a bitchswitch about radio not pushing his new crap, do you think they'd support him too?

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:23 (twenty-one years ago)

yes

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

well not really

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought you were being literal, that their review was along the lines of "he hates radio now that his new stuff isn't on it, awesome!" - making fun of him for only hating radio now. That sounds more like a Vice review, I guess.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 10 September 2004 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

tom petty's finest hour: sandra bernhard's version of "stop draggin' my heart around" on the rodney dangerfield 75th birthday special

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 11 September 2004 05:40 (twenty-one years ago)

"American Girl" = Best non-Byrds Byrds song EVAH

Which makes McGuinn's cover of it that much better than Petty's original

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 11 September 2004 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Anthony, "Face in the Crowd" -- nice.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 12 September 2004 05:02 (twenty-one years ago)

mcguinn says that when he heard "american girl" on the radio he wondered "did i record this song and forget about it?"

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 12 September 2004 05:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom Petty is great because he's like all the guys in Dazed and Confused except for real, coming up with rock'n'roll when it meant longhair girls and good weed and the sort of hazy endless beer blast that represented rebellion or freedom or just, you know, being your own dog to all those redneck riviera Florida kids, for lack of imagination or opportunity or, hell, desire to do anything else. And also because he loved Dylan and the Stones not for what they said or meant but how they sounded, because they sounded fucking great and he wanted to sound fucking great, which is exactly what the Byrds wanted too and that's the other reason he sounds like the Byrds (apart from sounding like the Byrds), that he's a sonics guy just like McGuinn and his music never means more or less than that perfect aching tremor in his voice or that Rickenbacker twang in his amp. And also because he deploys his minor falls and major lifts as well as any four-chord rocker of his generation. And also because, fuck it, even the losers get lucky sometimes.

― spittle (spittle), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:06 (twenty-one years ago)

My own POX:
American Girl
I Need to Know
Even the Losers
Louisiana Rain
A Woman in Love
Straight Into Darkness
You Got Lucky
Dogs on the Run
Free Fallin'
You Wreck Me

― spittle (spittle), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:17 (twenty-one years ago)

what has tom petty done for me other than make me feel nostalgic for a time that didn't even exist or I wasn't even alive for. come on it's fucking nostalgia rock with all the trimmings. and a few good singles.

― danh (danh), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:17 (twenty-one years ago)

You oughta hear me and Wifey cover "Hometown Blues"

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:22 (twenty-one years ago)

if he were more of a jerk or a blowhard, he'd be the american paul weller. i think that some folks get really into him b/c he's always been a sort-of alternative to other pop music. when i was a teen in the mid/late 80s, for instance, tom petty was sorta-alternative to the hair-metal and vapid dance-pop that dominated the radio. he could've also passed as "new wave" in that he's always had a back-to-the-basics ethos (even when his music came slathered in dave stewart/jeff lynne studio syrup) that's similar to roughly-contemporaneous british pub-rock. in a similar vein, one could argue that "refugee," "american girl," et. al. paved the way for rem and other american groups of that type to make the leap onto mainstream rock radio.

as it is, i like a lot of his songs in a "wouldn't turn the dial if he comes on the radio" sort-of way. i've got cds of damn the torpedoes and full moon fever which i haven't played in years (and don't feel a burning need to do so).

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:29 (twenty-one years ago)

That Mad Max-ripoff video they did for "You Got Lucky" was HELLA cool.

― shmarken, Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:32 (twenty-one years ago)

One thing that helped him sell a lot of records in the 80s was that he really liked making videos. You can tell. He liked dressing up and everything, and doing all that goofy Alice in Wonderland shit. Him and ZZ Top, they were some of the only 70s rockers who figured out MTV.

― spittle (spittle), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:37 (twenty-one years ago)

And Billy Squier too

― shmarken, Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:52 (twenty-one years ago)

j. geils, the cars...

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 12 September 2004 07:53 (twenty-one years ago)

and yes ... "owner of a lonely heart"!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 12 September 2004 08:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, he seems to *not* be a heartbreaker, as his bands title does not extend to him. That's quite nice.

― Sasha (sgh), Monday, 13 September 2004 03:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe he speaks Wilbury?

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 13 September 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

mcguinn says that when he heard "american girl" on the radio he wondered "did i record this song and forget about it?"

Ha! Ha! I heard that same story, applied to Neil Young and "A Horse With No Name". Fun-ny!

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 14 September 2004 05:29 (twenty-one years ago)

i remember fondly that SNL skit where petty serves as an interpreter for bob dylan

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 14 September 2004 06:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I think a lot of people would take Tom Petty a lot more seriously if it weren't for the fact that he looks like a rabbit.

― Donnie Smith The Quiz Kid, Tuesday, 14 September 2004 07:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Was it Adam Sandler or similar doing Dylan? Whoever it was just went 'ne-wheey, ne-wheey, ne-wheey' until Petty manfully stepped in.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 14 September 2004 07:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Y'all know my feelings on The Last DJ.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 14 September 2004 12:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i liked his solo album alot. But beyond that ... beats me?

― doomie x, Tuesday, 14 September 2004 12:22 (twenty-one years ago)

and factor in my byrds obsession and you will realise that the above comment ranks a mighty 0/10 for relevancy. much like the majority of my ilxor.com postings! hooray!

― doomie x, Tuesday, 14 September 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Search:
"Wont Back Down"
"Refugee"
"Don't Come Around Here No More"
When he sings like Neil Young Impersonating Bob Dylan

Destroy:
When he sings like Bob Dylan Impersonating Neil Young
that "Into the Great Wide Open" song.
Everything Else.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Tuesday, 14 September 2004 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

well it was nearly summer
we sat on your roof

(thread revival cuz tom petty car-drivin windows-down season is upon us)

― tipsy mothra, Sunday, 27 May 2007 07:27 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.julecarey.com/images/Tom-Petty-Ass_large.jpg

― tipsy mothra, Sunday, 27 May 2007 07:34 (nineteen years ago)

i was brought up on tom petty, thanks to my mum's residual fangirl craving. some of it still holds up pretty well! i remember thinking how 'i won't back down' must have been one of the most inspiring pieces of music ever written (this was when i was 9). i would always equate it with the bunnies' struggle in watership down.

― Just got offed, Sunday, 27 May 2007 11:25 (nineteen years ago)

That song in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is pretty brilliant when you're cruising thru the desert towards Las Venturas.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 27 May 2007 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 637 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.