Tuesday, April 13, 1999
Tom Petty still young at his art
BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Rock 'n' roll dead? No way. For proof, look no further than veterans Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, who today release their best album in almost 20 years. Co-produced by Rick Rubin (who produced the singer's 1994 solo album, Wildflowers) Echo mixes the various personae the singer has adopted since coming on the scene in 1976, the early days of punk and new wave.
ALBUM REVIEW
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TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS
Echo
Warner Brothers
$17.99 CD; $10.99 cassette
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“Room at the Top” opens the 15-song disc in laid-back folk-rock mode. Crooning over a bed of gentle electric guitars, Mr. Petty plays a rejected lover seeking solace in “a room where everyone can have a drink and forget those things that went wrong in their life.”
But just when it seems we've heard this before, in comes guitarist Mike Campbell's barrage of crunchy chords, and the song starts to sound like Pearl Jam backing Neil Young. From there, the song alternates nakedly emotional verses (“Please love me. I'm not so bad, and I love you so.”) with the defiant chorus, “I got a room at the top of the world tonight and I ain't (pause) comin' (pause) down.”
“Counting On You” moves to the sort of simmering strut that's a Heartbreakers trademark. “Free Girl Now,” the disc's debut single, goes back to the garage, with a reckless, three-chord riff that rocks harder than any Heartbreakers record since the early '80s.
Then the disc takes a hard left, veering into deep country mode with “Lonesome Sundown,” complete with sweet harmonies and twangy guitar.
“Accused of Love” sounds like early Petty, a bouncy bit of Brit-inspired pop-rock driven by cheesy new wave organ and a 12-string guitar solo that channels A Hard Day's Night-era George Harrison.
The title track is a lyrical, Dylan-esque ballad of resignation and longing for people and relationships that don't survive, leaving a “sad echo” behind.
But Echo is most of all an album of survival, a testament that at 46, after a lifetime fronting bands, Mr. Petty's not ready to abandon rock 'n' roll. He follows “Echo” with “Won't Last Long,” a mid-tempo rocker with the resilient chorus, “I'm down, but it won't last long.”
That's the theme of Echo — “beat-up but not beaten.” Boxing references run through the disc, “I went down hard, but I got up again,” he sings in “Billy the Kid”; in “Swingin',” it's “went down swingin'.” In “Rhino Skin” he warns, “You need rhino skin if you're gonna pretend you're not hurt by this world.”
When Bob Seger started feeling his birthdays, the results were often maudlin exercises in empty nostalgia. But Mr. Petty's music retains its youthful bite, thanks in part to Mr. Rubin's modern production.
Echo closes with the slow and soulful “One More Day, One More Night.” “One more night, God I've had to fight, to keep my line of sight on what's real.” But that's the only way to do it, he acknowledges with the chorus, “So hold on one more night, hold out one more day.”
With its songs of experience burnished with a rebellious edge, Echo is one of the best mainstream rock albums in years. Don't miss it.
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