Tom Petty on the best album he ever made: “That one I think is the most me”
Throughout his career, Tom Petty always seemed to be making rock and roll because he needed to rather than wanted to. As opposed to other artists who try their best to put their best foot forward in the hopes of getting in the good graces of the public, his work with the Heartbreakers came from a force that was driven out of them half the time. Every Petty record would reflect the time it was made in, but in terms of his own career highlights, the music man thought nothing could beat what he did on Wildflowers.
Granted, it’s almost hard to pick a favourite record when going through Petty’s 1990s output. After closing the book on the 1980s with his first proper solo album, Full Moon Fever, it seemed like the songwriter would spend the rest of his life working with Jeff Lynne on records and rubbing elbows with his heroes like Roy Orbison and George Harrison.
That’s just one facet of what he could do, though, and as much as songs like ‘Free Fallin” worked for their time, it was in danger of getting stiff. The rest of the group had talked about feeling stifled working on Into the Great Wide Open, so bringing in Rick Rubin to work on the next record was one of the best moves they could have made.
Rubin was already known for helping acts focus on the songs before anything else, and after falling in love with Full Moon Fever, he wanted to get Petty back to his stomping grounds. The heartland rocker was up to the challenge, but even he couldn’t have imagined how much material he had to work with.
Once the album started rolling with the title track, half of the record could be considered Petty’s greatest work. Across every other song, fans get another flavour of what Petty could do as well as pieces that you didn’t even know were possible from him like the hard rocker ‘Honey Bee’ or the singer-songwriter sounds of ‘To Find a Friend’, the latter of which sounds like he’s laying the groundwork for artists like Elliott Smith.
Even though his personal life was far from perfect behind the scenes, Petty remembered Wildflowers as one of the major highlights of his recording career, telling Paul Zollo, “It’s my favourite, I think, of all of them… It went on a long time but it was very rewarding. It was coming out so good. I think, looking back over all our work, it’s just one of the most satisfying things. There are some other ones I really like, but that one I think is the most me. That’s where I live musically.”
Although a lot of the greatest moments from his career usually landed before this record came out, this is the kind of record that sounds incredible because you can feel the musicians having fun while they’re working on it. As opposed to slaving away in the studio, chances are Petty didn’t even need to get paid to enjoy hearing the playback on masterpieces like ‘Wake Up Time’ or ‘Crawling Back To You’.
The aftermath of this record would ultimately slow down Petty’s hot streak for years once he began working on Echo, but this was one last hurrah of his classic period. Other records may be breezier, and some might actually work better as a whole, but this might be the best indicator of every genre within his grasp.
