The albums Tom Petty couldn’t stand: “The whole idea of it offended me”
It’s hard being perfect all the time, and even those with the most impeccable track record for releasing classic album after classic album are prone to releasing a dud occasionally.
Creative hot streaks can’t last forever, and even the greats are acutely aware of just how hard it is to keep up to those high standards. For an artist as self-critical as Tom Petty, maintaining that level of consistency became both a blessing and a burden. Success raised expectations, and each new release was inevitably measured against the towering achievements that came before it.
Given how prolific Tom Petty was throughout his career, there should be plenty of room for forgiveness around the fact that not every album he released with the Heartbreakers or as a solo artist was going to be able to live up to Damn The Torpedoes.
With 13 albums alongside his band and three more on top of that on his own, he did a remarkable job of keeping on top form for most of these releases, but Petty seemingly set himself an incredibly high standard to keep to, and anything that he deemed to be sub-par by his own metric would be subject to his own personal derision. It didn’t matter that the public and his most ardent fans thought otherwise; if Tom Petty wasn’t happy with the outcome of an album, he wouldn’t hold back when it came to self-criticism.
While an album like Wildflowers would always sit as one of his own personal favourites, there were a small handful of records that he released before and after this masterpiece that he’d rather forget ever existed. Due to external circumstances affecting the output of the band or the drying up of the well of ideas, the three records that Petty hates most from his back catalogue both stick out as being creative low points in an otherwise revered discography.
The first turning point Petty identified came with his 1982 release, Long After Dark. This album saw the Heartbreakers experimenting with modern sounds, incorporating synthesisers and drum machines into their music. While it is by no means a poor record, it marked a subtle shift towards a new wave-inspired style. As often happens during transitional phases for bands, the shift did not come naturally, and Petty himself later described the album as “one that felt like treading water”.
However, these were far from the most scathing words he had to say about his own work. The absolute nadir of his output would come shortly after the release of his personal favourite in 1994. After such a high point, he would struggle to follow up with another record of the same calibre for several years, entering a slump for the subsequent two releases.
The second of these, 1999’s Echo, came at a troubling time for Petty, and he cites the fact that he had recently divorced from his wife as being an extenuating factor for its poor quality. “My family was in complete upheaval,” he told Rolling Stone in reaction to the troubled time he was experiencing around the recording of the album, and while it’s understandable that this would have been playing on his mind at the time, it’s not an excuse that he could make for the dreadful outcome of the previous album.
The Heartbreakers’ 1996 soundtrack to She’s The One is the album that Petty despised most from his career, and the pure contempt he held for the band’s efforts for the film far eclipses his hatred for the other low moments. “I hated that record — the whole idea of it offended me,” he said in response to the release. Making excuses for himself, saying that he only chose to make the album out of boredom and necessity, he told Men’s Journal that he had initially only offered to make a couple of songs for director Ed Burns, but that it spiralled out of control and he found himself working on a full soundtrack for the movie.
“I took some stuff I hadn’t used on Wildflowers,” he said. “Really crummy versions, badly mixed, and put them on there. It was terrible, really. I’m disappointed I did that.”
Arguably, Petty should have known better to not put forward an album of offcuts, and if you’re going to make an album full of leftovers that weren’t good enough for your favourite album, then you’ve only got yourself to blame that it ended up being as poor as it was.
Even so, Petty’s willingness to acknowledge mistakes arguably enhanced his reputation rather than damaged it. Few artists with a catalogue as celebrated as his were prepared to speak so openly about the records they believed failed to meet their own standards.
