Welcome to Sunday, gentle readers!
Sunday is both the best and worst day of the weekend. It is relaxing and laid
back, but at the same time you can feel the start of the work week just around
the corner, ready to mess with your mojo. Speaking of mojo…
Disc 708 is…. Mojo
Artist: Tom Petty
and the Heartbreakers
Year of Release: 2010
What’s up with the Cover? A bunch of words
and some “photobooth” style shots of Tom Petty (who has been taken over by a
beard in recent years) and the Heartbreakers (who have not).
How I Came To Know It: I am big fan of Tom Petty so I
basically buy his albums when they come out. That’s what happened here.
How It Stacks Up: I have 15 Tom Petty Albums. Of these, “Mojo” is not
one of my favourites and I’ll rank it 13th.
Rating: 3 stars
“Mojo” suffers a little by being sandwiched between two really good Tom
Petty albums: 2006’s “Highway Companion” and 2014’s “Hypnotic Eye.” Despite
this, I found myself enjoying it more on this listen than I have previously.
The first thing you notice with “Mojo” is how bluesy it is. It is so
bluesy that I’ve decided to tag it both rock and blues. It isn’t Howlin’ Wolf
or John Lee Hooker or anything, but the influences are obvious from the opening
track, “Jefferson Jericho Blues.”
Some songs just put the word ‘blues’ in their title but really aren’t blues –
this isn’t one of them, and there are plenty more on the album (“Running Man’s Bible,” “Candy,” “US 41,” and others) that also deserve that designation.
The best of these is “Running Man’s
Bible” which has that low, gritty sensibility that the blues always seem to
have. These are songs that make you feel like getting out of bed at noon and
skipping a shower. It is clear that guitarist Mike Campbell relishes playing
the blues licks as well, and his guitar is as good on “Mojo” as any of the band’s
earlier work.
Petty’s voice has also held up very well over the years; one of the
advantages of never being known as a great vocalist to begin with, I suppose.
And like other great but vocally limited songwriters (Steve Earle, John Prine,
Townes Van Zandt) he knows how to write a song that lands nicely in his
wheelhouse.
In addition to bluesy songs, there are atmospheric ballads that paint vibrant
pictures of the many characters you might run into out there in the lonely
strips of American highway in between cities.
“The Trip to Pirate’s Cove” is
a great lowlife road trip track with a dreamy quality that evokes empty
stomachs, low gas tanks and cheap motel sex with strangers; in this case the
actual maids working there.
There is also plenty of introspection, including the gentle, understated
“No Reason to Cry,” and the stark but
hopeful “Something Good Coming.”
The up-tempo blues-rock tracks alternate with these more introspective
songs. While both are good in their own right, the effect feels like two
different albums that have been shuffled together. It doesn’t help that the
record is 15 songs long and over 64 minutes, making it hard to get your head
around all the music. I would have preferred “Mojo” to have been split into two
albums each half the length, and more musically cohesive.
However, if anyone can take a sprawling mess of styles and turn it into
a panorama of American life it is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Listening to
“Mojo” again made me realize that I didn’t give it enough time when I first
bought it, and I’m resolved to get it into a more regular rotation in future.
Best
tracks: Running
Man’s Bible, The Trip to Pirate’s Cove, No Reason to Cry, Don’t Pull Me Over,
Something Good Coming
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