I’ve talked about Tom Petty a fair amount over the years on here so it probably makes sense to start off with what I shared about his career and sound during my write-up of his magnum opus Damn The Torpedoes when I wrote about that album in May of 2023:
For my money Tom Petty has and always will be the perfect encapsulation of American heartland rock. Throughout his career he showed an innate ability to combine the blues, traditional country, garage rock, British invasion, rock and roll, and folk songwriting sensibilities to create some of the finest works of art found in classic rock. Everything I love about rock and roll is found in Petty’s catalogue– electric guitars perfectly distorted and warm, a thumping percussion section that pushes the pace ever so slightly, whirling organs that fill out the high end, bass lines that add color but never distract, and Petty’s slurred nasal delivery that echoes Bob Dylan but finds its own place in rock history.
So yeah, Petty absolutely kicks ass. And his debut album with The Heartbreakers saw him already operating at an incredibly high clip. “Refugee” off Torpedoes is my favorite Petty song of all-time, but for my money there’s no better sheer groove in his discography than “Breakdown”, the second song off this album. The whole damn song is so damn patient. I love how the first few bars sound like the band warming up for a practice session, I love how the guitar lick at 0:08 comes in and then the whole band besides the drums drop off for two bars before everyone comes in again, I love how the verse is this clever interplay between each instrument kind of noodling off each other, I love the keyboard build before the chorus, I absolutely love the backing vocal harmonies that soar in out of nowhere during the chorus and just lift everything up into the atmosphere, I love how after the first chorus ends there’s just this 25 second instrumental section that leads into a nasty guitar riff before boom you’re right back into another chorus (where the hell did that second verse go?), and I love how the whole song ends with little fanfare and a slow fade out. It’s just pure damn cool perfection.
That’s kind of what defines Petty and the Heartbreakers first album front to back– cool ass shit. Outside of “American Girl” there isn’t really a pure play radio single on the whole album but the groove and vibe is just immaculate. From the deep cuts in his discography like the claustrophobic “Strangered in the Night” (which 100% is going to be our walk-in music for Related to Strangers once we go on tour), to the methodical groove of “Fooled Again”, to the honky-tonk happiness of “Mystery Man”, it’s an album that relies on it’s B-side strength to carry the day.
Standout Songs: “Breakdown”, “American Girl”, “Strangered in the Night”, “Fooled Again”, “Mystery Man”
