The artist Phil Collins thought always reinvented himself: “Very edgy”
It’s impossible to expect an artist to play the same style of music every time they go into the studio. No one is confined to a box by their fans, and no matter how scary change might seem for some people, it’s normally the reason why artists can thrive when they step behind the glass and start singing a song. Although Phil Collins knew about musical progression a few times over working with Genesis, he knew that Tom Petty was one of the perfect examples of artists reinventing themselves.
Then again, Petty wasn’t necessarily on David Bowie levels of reinvention or anything. Looking through his discography, there are always bits and pieces of traditional heartland rock in every one of his songs, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that the writer of ‘American Girl’ would also one day write ‘I Won’t Back Down’.
Before even getting to the music, Petty was reinventing the way artists could be treated by their labels. Outside of building a full-on lawsuit case against those trying to seize the copyright to his songs, Petty never tried to keep his music out of reach of his fans, going so far as to insist that his records weren’t being sold for more than the typical price of an album.
As Petty started working his way into the 1980s, though, Collins had started to transition to more pop territory as well. Genesis was a fine outlet for his advanced musical exercises, but for a group that was all about complexity back in the day, it made sense why ‘Sussudio’ and ‘In the Air Tonight’ didn’t fit the same mould.
But while Collins’s approach to pop music did venture towards the line of syrupy muzak, he always had respect for what Petty did. After all, this was a guy standing up for everyone trying to make a name for themselves in the industry, and even if it meant taking himself down with the ship, he never tried to sell himself out for the sake of earning a few more dollars.
Despite being a fellow pop star, Collins remembered admiring what Petty could do on his records, saying, “I’ve loved Tom Petty’s stuff for a long, long time. He is very cynical, which I kind of understand, you know. I always loved his work with the Traveling Wilburys. But he has that 12-string thing, it’s just that reminds me a little bit of The Byrds, I think, from the 60s. I just find him very edgy, keeps reinventing himself.”
And it’s not like Petty can’t move out of his comfort zone. By the time he landed on Wildflowers, he was creating unique textures in the studio, and up until his death, tunes off of Echo and Hypnotic Eye saw him going in a much more garage-focused angle than anything else he had done.
No one is going to say that Petty covered nearly as much ground as Collins did throughout his lifetime, but there’s something to be said about shifting one’s sound into different shapes. It’ll still sound like him, but Petty always found a way to slightly twist around his sound to where fans got a new experience every single time they sat down with one of his records.
