does tom petty have any redeeming qualities?

man, Tom was getting so much love on ILM lately. And now he's a rap-hatin', war-profiteerin', whiney jerk.

I still like'em, but he's such a fun target.

stevie nicks apparently is also down with the war profiteers...

I would like to hear "go shorty, it's your bat mitzvah" if it was ever leaked.

playing obscene rich person/corporate events is one of the open dirty secrets of working musicians, isn't it?

i don't really see what's objectionable in that article. i've read petty being a dick about prefab pop stars and that kind of thing before -- yr standard rockist complaints -- but there isn't even really any of that in there. there's some doofy stuff said by the writer, but it's not at all clear it comes from petty. and i think the decibel guy is taking the "one of the best bands" lines somewhat wrong -- i think he's mostly big-upping his band (and campbell in particular), and at their best the heartbreakers really were great.

also tho this line

Mr. Petty has written from a female perspective on a surprising number of songs

is something i was thinking about during our recent run of petty polls, and i think it does help account for his large female audience. "american girl" is a sort of unusual song for a male rock dude to write, because she's not some object of desire, the whole song is from inside her head. and even on something like "woman in love," which is from the guy's perspective, the woman is complex, not just some witch, and the failure is mostly on the guy's part ("i don't understand the world today/ i don't understand what she needed").

His other great subject is people fucking with his head ("Breakdown," "Don't Come Around Here No More," "Jammin' Me," etc) -- a universal sentiment.

fortunately he's written many more great pop songs than fucking Timberlake.

He's also been recording music for thirty years.

the woman is complex, not just some witch

and she's always been so hard to figure out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ytcQW93yrU

Maybe that's an allusion to the Eagles "Witchy Woman"?

Dylan's voice + Roger McGuinn's voice = Tom Petty's voice

yes?

I also hear some Gene Clark in his phrasing, at times.

hey i was really into "mixed emotions" as a kid

yeah i was like 12 when it came out and i do remember liking it. but i was probably a little abnormal. somewhere around 7th grade i mothballed all my pop and 80s hair metal cassettes and began listening almost exclusively to beatles/dylan/early stones/zep for about 2 years. i'm certain i was unbearable.

o yeah, still listened to a lot of rap (that i could get my hands on, that is. parental advisory stickers etc had become a really Big Deal iirc)

He's not Sarah Palin--that always counts for something. (Even though he wasn't-Sarah-Palin long before anyone had ever heard of Sarah Palin.)

What is it with Mick and leotards?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdJzLpWFYJ4

what the fuck @ this thread title

i bet you listen to 1st wave emo

i srsly get confused when this thread title comes up

When I think of flower power, I think of Bryan Adams.

i bet you listen to 1st wave emo

Not if you read the post. More like the standard anti-white-guys-with-guitars-attitude.

He's not Sarah Palin

^ I meant to italicize that quote from above and add a sarcastic, "No, I don't suppose he is." And I have failed at that.

I like some of Petty's songs very much, for what it's worth.

important questions:

-- does tom petty have any redeeming qualities?
-- the pope: catholic, or what?
-- bears shit in the woods, y/n?

Well, polar bears don't.

jess totally listens to first wave emo i'm pretty sure

That live 4CD Tom Petty box that came out last year is fucking great. First of all, the performances are from a twenty-plus year span but sound like they could have all been recorded at the exact same gig; second of all, you can get it for like $22 at Target. Highly recommended.

yeah i still need to get that live box ...

ug threads like this up top are the worst of the "good old days" of ILM

ug threads like this up top are the worst of the "good old days" of ILM

i wonder what jess thinks now?

best answer:

Good god Jess, have you never been in a CAR?
― Josh, Monday, December 31, 2001 7:00 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

there was a curious form of anti-rockism that was actually anti-popism

More like anti-boringmusicism.

ah petty's ok. josh otm.

Blimey, this thread. So old, people posted with their real names!

They probably used real instruments too.

We carved out our posts on petrified papyrus.

the heartbreakers are a terrific band, even on songs i don't really like mike campbell comes up with something really distinctive -- he might be a better melodicist than his band leader.

dude wrote fucking Boys of Summer

and this is a good or a bad thing?

yeah campbell writes brilliant guitar parts, very typical of amazing guitarists that don't really get that much recognition from the guitar mag industry because they don't specialize as soloist....

me and a couple of friends were speculating that thunders and petty should have swapped heartbreakers for like 3 months and each recorded albums with the other band...that could have been pretty cool

i did not know that!

xp re: boys of summer

yep petty admitted that was a fuckup letting that go in the documentary

listen to it now, and you can TOTALLY hear that chorus as a tom petty song

"Runaway Trains" always sounded like Campbell trying to write a "Boys of Summer" sequel for Petty.

Has Petty ever covered it ("The Boys of Summer") ?

For what it's worth, I think Henley's vocal suits the snotty wistfulness of the song better than Petty's would have.

In 1984 Henley was much more comfortable with synths than Petty was.

"Runaway Trains" always sounded like Campbell...

Yes. Except he forgot to write a melody for the verses

great chorus though

He's such a riveting figure, his thread has held the top of the list for the past 40+ minutes.