Then this blog came along, and rekindled my love of writing, and before you knew it I couldn't stop. So for everyone who reads this, and has given me encouragement along the way, let me say a big thank you for keeping my creative fires burning. As of this morning, I'm one step closer to the dream.
OK, enough with the teary-eyed reverie. Let's get on with today's review.
It is well known that if I like someone as an artist, I tend to mine their collection pretty extensively. As a result, it is no surprise there are more than a few artists in the collection with 10 or more albums. Almost 300 discs in, there aren't many of these where I haven't reviewed at least one of their albums at this point, but this next artist was just such an exception. Until now, of course.
Disc 293 is...Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)
Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Year of Release: 1987
What’s Up With The Cover?: I don't know why bands listen to creative directors when they propose the idea of having a collage of portions of the band's face combined to make a new 'face', but I wish they'd stop. This cover is not quite as bad as the abomination that is Queen's, "The Miracle" (reviewed back at Disc 52), but it is close.
How I Came To Know It: I have been a big Tom Petty fan for years, but this album is actually one of Sheila's purchases. She has known it since it came out, but it was hard to find on CD and we only recently added it to the collection in the last few years.
How It Stacks Up: As much as I love Tom Petty, and as much as I wish to avoid my wife's displeasure, I think this is one of his weaker albums. It is still good, but not the best. I have fourteen Tom Petty albums, which I think is all of them. I would put "Let Me Up" at about 11th depending on my mood at the time.
Rating: 3 stars.
I first mentioned this album way back at Disc 33, when I reviewed the Elizabethtown Soundtrack. "Elizabethtown" has a version of this record's "It'll All Work Out" that I really love, and that I actually heard before I ever heard the original. "Elizabethtown's version is very dressed down on the production side. The song is a gorgeous, understated story of a lost love, but told from the perspective of someone removed enough from the heartache to come to grips with their own role in the break up.
The version on "Let Me Up" is a bit too pop music for my tastes, and has that eighties disconnect so common from roughly 1984 to 1988. It is still a good song, but having heard it the way it could be, I found myself wishing the original was as sparse as the re-recording.
And this is generally my complaint with "Let Me Up" as an album - it has annoying eighties production. Coming on the heels of reviewing INXS' "Listen Like Thieves" this may be a bit repetitive, but damn it, if I don't remind people often how bad production was at this time, what is to stop us from repeating the errors of music history? Frankly, with some of the indie music coming out, it is already happening. We must remain vigilant and so, I rant. OK - 'nuff said.
The good parts of "Let Me Up" are many. Principally the song writing is solid, and shines through any other shortcomings. This album comes after "Southern Accents" and before "Full Moon Fever" chronologically, but in many respects it is an oddball in that progression. I found the songs more reminiscent of the first four albums from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, with that mix of jumpy rockabilly and southern blues rock. I like that early period of Petty's work, and it was fun to watch him and the band play with their earlier sound and find new ways to arrange songs.
Sheila's favourite on the record is "Runaway Trains", which I must admit is a beautiful song, which, like "It'll All Work Out", is about lost love. In this case instead of wistfully remembering what could be different, the singer is looking forward to the day when he can forget the girl and move on. Of course later in the song, this is turned on its head as she replies:
"She says 'I understand
I'm used to being alone
And holding my own hand
I'm stronger than you know."
Whoever's leaving who here, I like the idea explored throughout of how a train gets away from itself in the same way a relationship does - it gets a lot of momentum, and everything can be just fine right up to the moment it jumps the tracks. Only at that point do you realize something is wrong, and then of course it's too late to slow down or correct course.
The big hit on the album was "Jammin' Me", a song about the proliferation of media and television in every aspect of our lives. I didn't like this song when it came out, but on this listen it really grew on me. It is great in the car as well, with a nice forward moving tempo that makes you feel like you're getting somewhere even as the lyrics remind you that we're not getting anywhere. It is a song about all the mindless entertainment being shoved down our throats getting in the way of clarity of thought. Maybe I like this song better now because it has never been more timely.
To close, this is a solid album, and if I don't wax overly poetic over it, it is only because I have been spoiled by the sheer number of excellent Tom Petty albums out there. The guy knows how to make great music. "Let Me Up" isn't his best, but it is undeniably good. Without the eighties production, it would easily be a 4 star album.
Best tracks: Jammin' Me. Runaway Train, It'll All Work Out, All Mixed Up, Aint' Love Strange
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