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 – Long After Dark – 1982 (Buy It)
You know what you hear a LOT of and get real tired of if you listen to enough Tom Petty? Tambourine. It’s all over his stuff. Sometimes it functions a lot like a co-lead vocalist. It’s pretty tiring. Just sayin.
The New Wave-y tones on You Got Lucky almost drag it down to latter day J. Geils-land but it’s easily rescued by Petty and his craft. Truth is, Peter Wolf could be singing lead on this track and no one would have been the wiser. Less people would have bought it, but…..
The songs are here. None of them really suck. “Finding Out” actually rocks harder than most of the previous record. Instead of being a full meal, Long After Dark is a forgettable lunch. Which is a shame but also, kind of due, right? I mean, four albums that build upon better and better songwriting, touring, fighting with the label, eventually you just gotta be too tired to come up with stuff better than “We Stand a Chance”. Okay, maybe that kind of sucks.
You really don’t need to hear this record.
Grade D+
A Side: You Got Lucky
BlindSide: A One Story Town, Finding Out.
Downside: We Stand a Chance, Straight into Darkness, The Same Old You (which sounds like bad Aerosmith ripping off bad Stones), A Wasted Life
