The album Tom Petty wasn’t happy with: “It was frustrating for them”
Every generational artist is bound to have a few records that don’t quite stand the test of time. While the classics remain untouchable, there are always albums that seem to have ridden a trend or struck a sour note with audiences, making them harder to defend. Although Tom Petty had one of the most consistent track records in his genre, the man himself felt that The Last DJ left a lot to be desired when he listened back to it.
Before Petty had even started working on the record, the music industry had begun to shift ever so slightly. The massive stars were still becoming legendary in their respective fields, but the rise of Pop Idol and other reality shows seeking to birth their own pop stars was starting to become a sore spot for artists that actually had something to say outside of the manufactured, made-for-TV life story.
So, for Petty, The Last DJ was a reminder to both the industry and his fellow artists to make sure that their music actually mattered. Certainly a noble effort for anyone to keep in mind, but there’s a fine line between making an album that reminds people about one’s values and coming off like an old man talking about how everything is too different nowadays.
And it’s not like Petty doesn’t have a few sore spots on the record. The title track is fairly decent, but if you analyse the lyrics, it tends to be less about a wise old man setting the record straight and more like a holier-than-thou preacher instilling the traditional values that every rock star needs to abide by.
Beyond just the lyrics, Petty thought that his songs didn’t give the group a lot of room to work with, saying, “I don’t know that we were all happy with it in the end. I was being a bit more of a control freak with that album. In the studio, I’d come in with these really elaborate demos and say, ‘This is what I want.’ And it was frustrating for them because they didn’t have much room to contribute a lot. They were mostly playing things that I had already sketched out.”
When the group does lock in on a groove, though, it makes for the best tracks on the record. ‘Money Becomes King’ is a brilliant character portrait of how someone sells out, and the more intimate songs like ‘Have Love Will Travel’ feel like you’re in the room with the band as they tear through a version of the tune.
In fact, there might have been a little too much course correction when Petty eventually came up for air. The album Mojo is a fine piece of bluesy rock and roll, but by making it centred solely on jamming, a handful of cuts did linger on a bit longer than they should have.
Still, the lack of musical contributions shouldn’t diminish The Last DJ from being one of the more interesting entries in Petty’s catalogue. He may have been unsure about how he felt upon release, but looking back on it with over two decades of hindsight, he did have some fair points about the industry that have yet to be confronted today.
