#86
March 26 1985
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Southern Accents
Genre: Rock
2.5 out of 5
Highlights:
Don’t Come Around Here No More
Make it Better (Forget About Me)
I know this might be anathema, for some this was an era defining moment where classic rock met the video era and was triumphant.
And that’s as true for me as anyone, I guess. But, boy do I not like this record. What I hoped would happen is that, as I got older, I would find a deeper appreciation for Tom and this album because when I first did a Listening Post retrospective on TP I really didn’t like it. I thought it about on par with Long After Dark, which I gave a D+. I handed Accents a solid D, although it did have a couple breakout tracks.
What I am struck by this time, at the outset, is how much Petty sounds like Bob Dylan if he had a stomach flu and was trying not to throw up or trying to contain his explosive diarrhea. Nothing is coming easy to him on “Rebel”, the opening track, he just comes across as a Bruce Springsteen clone and I know that he’s capable of more than that.
I’m guessing the title leans heavier on the “accents” than the “southern” because then we get the R&B near-disco track “It Ain’t Nothin to Me” and it’s terrible.
Much like how Queen’s Jazz had nothing to do with actually Jazz this one is even worse: No one expected Queen to put out a Jazz record but you could be forgiven if you were disappointed that this isn’t a Southern Boogie Rock record, given his track record. But if you can make it through the morass of hodgepodginess, you get rewarded with the terrific “Make It Better” and “Dogs on the Run” (sandwiched around the fucking annoying “Spike”)
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