Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - She's The One - 1996 (Buy It)
I'm not a fan of Ed Burns, the director of the movie "She's the One", for which this album serves as soundtrack. i suppose it would be weirder if it was a film by Ken Burns but at least that way I would have heard it. Or of it. Here we have an album that sort of follows in the tradition set forth in Wildflowers: Minimalism. Relaxation. Fun. Innocuous. Tossed off. Rick Rubin is back to bring everything back to its roots. Mike Campbell is a co-producer/collaborator and the breakers are back. There are covers here, people. For the first time in the TP&tH catalog, I believe. Change the Locks by Lucinda Williams and Asshole, by Beck. How are they? Well, Change the Locks sounds like a Tom Petty song. Only bigger. Angrier. It's good. Not great. The same for Asshole except that, for the first time on this record, I can actually see the song playing over a scene of reflective melancholy or a montage of some kind. There is nothing here to make me recant my apathy toward Tom Petty. I'm sure his fans are satisfied with the 60 minutes of music/words that he provides. I will tell you this, Angel (No. 2) sounds too much, to me, like Springsteen's If I Should Fall Behind. Same era. Springsteen was first. And better. But Walls (No. 3) is one of the best songs Petty has written in years. That's a keeper.
Grade C+ A Side: Walls (Circus), Climb that Hill, Walls (No.3) BlindSide: Zero from Outer Space, Angel Dream No. 4, DownSide: Supernatural Radio, Hung Up and Overdue.
Petty sheds the Heartbreakers for another solo outing and dumps Jeff (Mr. Sheen) Lynne along the way. Hooking up with Rick (Let's get back to basics) Rubin, TP puts out a record that is more assured, less clunky and distracted than some previous offerings. I still feel like I don't understand why Petty has been a force to be reckoned with for so long. But, that said, there is something assuring and precious in a good way about this record. Maybe its the end of the glossy, bombastic 80s. Maybe it's that he has less to prove. I don't know. But there's more to love and revisit on Wildflowers than most of TPs previous albums. One holdover from the 80s, however, is that the songs just don't know when they are over. Even a 3+ minute confection like "Time to get Going" overstays its welcome by about 45 seconds. But, it's kind of hypnotically wonderful that you almost don't care. Until I find myself thinking, "is this song STILL playing?" and then I hate it and I want to die. The record is a good 20 minutes longer than it need be. And it really grinds to a stop at the end. But, there's so much good here that I can't fault him trying to include everything. There's a melancholy that hangs over this record that make it at once nostalgic and reminiscent. This is the best Petty has sounded in a while and certainly the best record of his to get high to. And the most latter day Beatles he has sounded as well.
Grade A A Side: You Don't Know How it Feels, Its Good to be King, You Wreck Me BlindSide: Time to Get Going, Hard to Find a Friend (Feat. Ringo Starr on drums!!) DownSide: Honey Bee (It should be better, you know?)
It's a slog. But I am determined to get through the Tom Petty catalog. Even if it kills me...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Into the Great Wide Open - 1991 (Buy It)
Petty brings the band back together for an official TP&tH album. Keeps Jeff Lynne around for that pop sheen and you know what? They actually sound great. The thing about this album is it's filled with Petty songs that you THINK you know but you really don't but it's so familiar and comfy that you don't mind it. And it actually rocks a little more than the man has let himself. Like Makin's Some Noise and Out in the cold. The California rock of Dark of the Sun could easily be mistaken for middling Eagles. Until nasal Petty comes out and warbles. Lynne does such a good job of producing this record for mass appeal that he actually renders Petty almost anonymous on his own record. This is one of the best in the Petty catalog and I never need to hear it again.
Grade B+ A Side: Learning to Fly, Into the Great Wide Open Blind Side: Out in the Cold, DownSide: Two Gunslingers, Built to Last
I've been reading Splotchy's blog for more than a year. I'm a fan. It's a weird blog. Has no center. Unconnected Tuesdays are just 2 pictures that have nothing in common. New Crayon Colors that Splotch invents or names.
And one thing that I have adored, as a musicaphile is The Green Monkey Project.
On occasion a blogger that is connected somehow to Splotch can come up with a theme set of songs. And the first x participants that join in can contribute 6 tracks to the listing, making up one great collected of 36 tracks. Like a themed box set.
This was my turn as you might have read. And, to my friends, my choices were no surprise, probably. But here they are and I will try to explain.
These are 6 representative tracks of 6 albums from the last half decade that you really should consider adding to your collection. Download these and all the others HERE.
01 - Jukebox The Ghost - Hold It In
This should come as no shocker. I love Jukebox the Ghost. I have extolled their virtues here and here. This is the first song that I hear of theirs. It was on a blog about a year ago. It caught me and has never, and I mean never, left heavy rotation in my house.
I think everyone should own Let Live and Let Ghost. Buy it here.
02 - Elbow - Some Riot
I never head of Elbow before January. Thanks to another blog that I read, Paul Allen's here, I came across his year end list. And I got almost all of the albums, because I trust Paul Allen.
When Seldom Seen Kid entered my life if it made everything that much better. Not as abstract as Radiohead. Not as cloyingly commercial as Coldplay. Elbow is the worst named, great band I know. And I'm hoping to get to see them backstage at some show since I learned that my trainer is friends with their manager.
03 - Against Me! - Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart
Oh, what can I say about Against Me!'s album. It's called New Wave because they signed to Sire and recognized the significance that label had on punk and the coining of the term, "New Wave"? That, in just over 30 minutes, this record stays around long enough to make you want more and not too long to realize that you've had enough? I dig this tune, especially since Tegan from Tegan and Sara does the chick's voice and is contrapuntally perfect against Gabel's growl.
Against Me! - Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart video ">
04 - The Thermals - Here's Your Future
The Thermals new one doesn't blow me away like this album did. And I think this might have been one that I heard first during my Soulseek days. (Long ago) There was a lot of chatter about this band and I got this album for dirt cheap at Amoeba. It might also be the last cd I've purchased. Doesn't matter. This one holds you by the throat and doesn't let go til it's over.
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05 - The Fratellis - For The Girl
2006 was a great year for music. A bad year to bury dead children but, surprisingly, a lot of good stuff was released.
Once again, I heard about this band on Soulseek. I fel so completely head over heels in love that I began a one man crusade to get them noticed. I needn't have worried. They were all over the place shortly after I found them. But I was happy to pay $18 for the import of Costello Music before it became available here in the states.
This is one of the best tracks off a great debut.
06 - Nightmare Of You - The Days Go By Oh So Slow
My trainer (he has great taste in music) used to manage a band that would play with my band on occasion. he once turned me on to this group. I think we were talking about The Killers and how the 80s were making a comeback only the music that was coming out was sub standard even by that terrible decade's terms.
Then I heard Brooklyn's Nightmare of You. You miss the 80s? Psychedelic Furs and the like? Get this record. You won't be sorry.
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Petty ditched the Heartbreakers for a while and hooked up with his Wilbury Pal, Jeff Lynne for his most interesting and accessible album in eons. Here is the rekkid that contains those hits you remember liking TP for. "Runnin Down a Dream", "Free Fallin". Maybe it's just me but I like a little pop sheen on my rock. And Lynne provides it. Hard to give this album any more accolades than it already has received. It's the best Petty has to offer in his first two decades as far as I am concerned. Sure, there are tracks like "Depending on You" that sound like they fell off a Traveling Wilbury CD, but, so what? The Wilburys were the anti-supergroup of the late 80s. They were catchy and fun and what's wrong with that? I dare you to listen to The Apartment Song and not think of this year's Jenny Lewis tune, "Carpetbaggers".
Grade A A Side: Free Fallin, Runnin' Down a Dream, I Won't Back Down BlindSide: Love is a Long Road, Yer So Bad, The Apartment Song DownSide: There isn't a clunker on this record.
I couldn't be more excited. Looks like I will have 30+ new bands to sample. Not just promos but real, honest to goodness, albums adored by people I can trust. I will have my explanations up as soon as the great Splotchy gets the mix up.
There is still room for one more in the Monkey Mixx. It's a daunting mix, I know. All new music. All "must have" releases from this last half decade. I am pleased that there are 5 participants, but we need (or would like) one more. As an example: here is my tentative list: Jukebox the Ghost - Hold it In Elbow - Some Riot Against Me! - Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart The Thermals - Here's Your Future The Fratellis - For the Girl Nightmare of You - The days Go By So Slow
When the mix is up I will make a post that addresses each song and each album and why you should own it, etc, etc. But, hey, still looking for that last person. Anyone? Anyone?
Splotchy has given me the grand opportunity to set the rules for the next Green Monkey Mix, I've been giving it some thought. Here's the deal. I love music. When I was a kid I bought Trouser Press and Cream and Rolling Stone and all sorts of magazines to help me find new music. I also listened to college radio and local stations and, dammit, if I didn't have my finger on the pulse of the great music. While the radio was pumping the pap into the atmosphere and airwaves we were listening to what would become the new waves of all music. But, now? It's all so splintered. There are so many blogs. There's so much noise. Who can you trust? You look at a magazine like Mojo and there is an article extolling the greatness of a new album and you want to trust it and then you look at the back cover and there is a full page ad for that same album. When the artist pays so much for that ad, how can the magazine not be biased? So, where can we turn? Where do I turn for new music recommendations? Obviously, the Green Monkey. Here's what I want: 6 tracks. 6 songs that represent 6 of the albums you have heard in the recent past (even up to now) that are albums that I SHOULD have. I want the perfect 36 (or more) song sampler that will show me what I am missing. I can list a bunch of albums from the last 3 years that I think are frigging great. And I think everyone would love them. Nightmare of You, The Builders and the Butchers, The Mountain Goats, The Hold Steady, The Thermals, Epoxies, Elbow, The Fratellis, Black Mountain, Jukebox the Ghost...there are so many. But, it's hard to know who or what else. Unless you read every blog, read every magazine or listen to only college radio/sirius all the time, you won't have a clue what's out there besides what the media tells you. Tell me. Give me the 6 tracks that represent the 6 albums from the last half decade that you think I NEED to hear. We will be taking the first 5 people to respond either here or on Splotch's site. So, think about it and jump in.
He duetted with Stevie Nicks. He's pioneered stoner animation videos. He's run the gamut of styles from pop to country rock to, well, just about everything. And he was a Wilbury. But, how well do we know the guy who wrote Mary Jane's Last Dance, Refugee, American Girl, and countless other classic rock staples? Well, I don't know him nearly at all. Hence the latest Listening Post. Let's dive in.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) - 1987 (Buy It)
Oh, the title says it all, doesn't it? Slogging my way through the TP back catalog makes me wish that I had listened to all of these albums 20 years ago so I wouldn't have to listen to them now and I could just say, "Wow, Tom Petty really made some boring music, didn't he?" and I could have left it at that and been done with it, moved on to better things, played with my child more, enjoyed a little bit of life. Instead, I'm mired ears deep in a morass of listless music by a band that really doesn't seem to care anymore, if they ever did. Leading off is "Jammin' Me", a song so uninterested in itself that it just sort of gives up at the end as if even it knows that there's no point continuing. Another track, The Damage is Done, continues this aimlessness and makes me wonder just what they were on when they submitted this to the label. And what the label was on when they put it out. If I hadn't already listened to two horrible Petty records back to back (Long After Dark & Southern Accents) I might have been slightly more forgiving, but this is three turds in a row and my ears are on the verge of giving out on me. Reading up on this record while listening I was reminded that, around this time, The Heartbreakers had been touring as Bob Dylan's backing band. Now, Petty has always flirted with a Dylan-esque sound, but that always informed the music rather than dictated it. The result here, with the recent psychedelic flirtations on Southern Accents and the Dylan and the sounds of the times results, at times, in some weird roots rock-Peter Gabriel hybrid that should be more interesting than it is but just leaves me cold. The album picks up a little steam in the back half, kind of like the desperation in "All Mixed Up" and I'm always down for some roots rockin like "Self Made Man", but the album is so ill conceived and boring that nothing, especially not these half-assed attempts, can salvage it.
Grade: D
A Side: Jammin' Me BlindSide: All Mixed Up, Self Made Man DownSide: The Damage is Done, Ain't Love Strange
He duetted with Stevie Nicks. He's pioneered stoner animation videos. He's run the gamut of styles from pop to country rock to, well, just about everything. And he was a Wilbury. But, how well do we know the guy who wrote Mary Jane's Last Dance, Refugee, American Girl, and countless other classic rock staples? Well, I don't know him nearly at all. Hence the latest Listening Post. Let's dive in.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Southern Accents - 1985 (Buy It)
Ah, the 80s. What can be said? It was a time when all rock music seemed like it was slathered in lotion or vaseline. When drum machines or electronic drums made everything sound "so fresh!" and immediately dated. No one was immune. Not even, it would seem, Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers. I don't think I've ever heard "Don't Come Around Here No More" when it wasn't accompanied by that surreal Alice in Wonderland video. How much did we enjoy watching Alice the cake get cut into? And, since smoke machines were the rage in the 80s, all the videos had that vaselined look, too. Without the images, though, it's just another hokey 80s electro-rock track. In fact, most of the album sounds like that. The "Southern Accents" of the title are not really indicative of a sound as much as they are just a title left over from some not-completed concept album. I was really kind of hoping that this album, with that monster hit, would have held secrets to the success and long-lastingness of Petty but, I was mistaken. Eurythmics' Dave Stewart was employed as producer and co-songwriter and I am at a loss to understand why. All he seems to add is a flat and sounds like leftovers from his own band. It should be noted that the only song I even "kind of" like is "Dogs on the Run" which is co-written by the real genius of TP&tH: Mike Campbell.
Grade D A Side: Don't Come Around Here No More, Make it Better BlindSide: Dogs on the Run. DownSide: Spike, Mary's New Car
