The 1990s bands that Tom Petty thought would stand the test of time
The entire premise behind rock and roll is that everything moves in cycles. No matter what is popular at one point, there will always be something else around the corner, ready to either take over or take things in a completely different direction than what had come before. While Tom Petty was getting dangerously close to dad rock territory by the 1990s, he felt that two of the biggest names in alt-rock would be around carrying on his brand of rock and roll for years to come.
Because Petty was never comfortable fitting into one genre. He had been lumped into the new wave and punk categories when he started out, but aside from the fact that he wore a leather jacket, comparing his music to Sex Pistols made about as much sex and comparing apples to styrofoam.
Petty was always his own brand of heartland rock, and while he did adapt with the times when he could, he managed to become evergreen when he reached the 1990s. The grunge scene had finally arrived, and now that acts like Pearl Jam and Nirvana were dominating the conversation, Petty started to get a bit more credibility alongside Neil Young as one of the most authentic artists in classic rock.
And it’s not like he couldn’t put his money where his mouth was. He had a great deal of respect for Nirvana when they came out, and even after Cobain’s tragic passing, Petty was seriously considering hiring Dave Grohl as his new drummer before Grohl eventually passed to form Foo Fighters instead.
But that kind of raucous music was never Petty’s forte. It was all about singer-songwriting, which Jeff Tweedy could do in his sleep with Wilco. Across their 1990s catalogue and into the new millennium with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Tweedy took all the lessons from rootsy rockers and infused a bit of country into the way he wrote songs on tracks like ‘Jesus Etc.’ and ‘I Am Trying To Break Your Heart’.
When talking about the next generation, Petty thought both Wilco and Beck had what it took to withstand the music trends, saying, “That guy Jeff Tweedy, he’s really good. He’s gonna do stuff and be around for a long time. So will Beck, I think. But I think most people on the music scene right now, even a lot of people that are really big names, won’t be around. They’ll be completely forgotten. ‘Cause there’s just no substance to their work.”
Despite Beck going in a thousand different directions on every album he makes, his songwriting prowess was at least tangential to what Tweedy was doing. He had a lot of eclectic influences, but his music was still all about paying tribute to the classic songwriters of days gone by, especially on Sea Change, where he created the kind of tunes that would have made Hank Williams envious.
Even though Petty would spend the latter half of his career getting into the blues and returning to country-adjacent music, Wilco and Beck are proof of that particular sound never wearing out its welcome. No matter how often people roll their eyes at the joker breaking out the acoustic guitar, a lot can be done with that one instrument as long as they have their hearts on their sleeve.
