REVIEW: Tom Petty, Greatest Hits
- Bob Gajarsky
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers have been putting out successful albums since the mid 1970's. Their latest release, on MCA, is an 18 song compilation simply titled Greatest Hits.
The Heartbreakers first breakthrough song, "American Girl", sounded so much like the Byrds that their lead singer, Roger Mcguinn took to performing a cover of it. But the Heartbreakers don't just sound like the Byrds. It's easy to forget that their music went against the disco sound of the late 70's so much that their albums were regularly appearing on the alternative, College Music Journal (CMJ) charts. Petty's Dylan-esque voice comes through on some of the earlier, rougher singles such as "I Need To Know" and "Breakdown". The band is truly the only 1980's representative of "Southern rock".
Enough on the band...how about the music? Well, the collection contains 16 previously issued tracks, and 2 new ones, "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and a cover of the Thunderclap Newman song, "Something In The Air". "Mary Jane..." represents a slight departure from Petty's recent work, as Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, Def Jam) was brought in to handle production chores. This leads to a more "spontaneous" sound than Petty's recent work, with the standard Heartbreakers sound. "Something...", unfortunately, doesn't represent much more than a moderate album track, at the expense of earlier hits. However, "Something" is the first time that Howie Epstein and Petty sing lead vocals throughout the entire song.
Refined (Jeff Lynne-produced) singles such as "Free Fallin", "I Won't Back Down", and "Into The Great White Open" help define the recent Petty sound, while "Don't Do Me Like That", "Here Comes My Girl" and "You Got Lucky" remain indicative of the early-80's Petty releases.
What's been left out? Two singles from the Southern Accents album ("Rebels", "Make It Better"), "Woman In Love", "Change of Heart", "Jammin' Me", and their cover of the Byrds "So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star". But with 18 songs already included, the question remains - what could be left out? Nothing except "Something In The Air"; it is an excellent representation of Petty's 20 years in rock.
My conclusion on this disc? There's no surprises here, which is good. The new tracks maintain Petty's consistent track record of quality songs, and MCA has included a wide variety of Petty tracks while including his hit singles. Anyone who is a Petty fan, the Traveling Wilburys, or the Byrds will know what to expect here and be competely satisfied with this tasteful holiday offering, Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's Greatest Hits.
Track listing: American Girl, Breakdown, Listern To Her Heart, I Need To Know, Refugee, Don't Do Me Like That, Even The Losers, Here Comes My Girl, The Waiting, You Got Lucky, Don't Come Around Here No More, I Won't Back Down, Runnin' Down A Dream, Free Fallin', Learning To Fly, Into The Great Wide Open, Mary Jane's Last Dance, Something In The Air
