I was off work today, so no commute time for listening
to this next album. Fortunately, I had a few errands to run. By walking to all
of them I was able to steal just the right amount of time I needed to give this
next record its due.
Disc 1297 is… Echo
Artist:
Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers
Year of Release: 1999
What’s up with the
Cover?
Tom and the boys lurk in the weeds. They look kind of miserable, but it isn’t
like weed-lurking is the kind of activity that puts a smile on your face.
How I Came to Know
It: I somehow missed this album
when it was released. I discovered it years later while fleshing out my Tom
Petty collection.
How It Stacks Up: I have 16 Tom Petty albums. I had reserved a
low spot for “Echo” but it fared better than I expected, bumping four other
records down a spot. It still only managed 11th best in the strong
field of records released by one of rock and roll’s greats.
Ratings: 3 stars
One of the keys to Tom Petty’s brilliance is
his exceptional range. He can play folksy strums reminiscent of the Byrds, and then
grit it out to with a dirty blues riff. “Echo” has strong examples of both
styles, although there may be just a bit too much music for one record. As the
saying goes, “great stuff – but save some of it for the sequel!”
The writing on “Echo” is what I’ve come to
expect from a Tom Petty album; classic melodic progressions that you didn’t
know were classic until Tom Petty wrote them down and played them for you. I’ve
never heard an artist consistently do more things with three chords than Petty.
He is proof-positive that every pop song has not, in fact, already been
written.
The unspoken hero of the record is Rick Rubin,
who – working alongside Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell – makes some sublime
production decisions. The instruments sit evenly in the mix, but even when
things get a bit layered and complex everything continues to sound distinct and
separated. I’ve long been a fan of Rubin’s ability to make a band sound better
without getting in the way of what makes them great in the first place.
On this record, we’ve got heart-wrenching Rickenbacker
strums on some songs, right alongside thick and rich blues riffs on others, but
everything feels like it belongs with everything else. It helps that this band
has been together so long they’ve become a hive mind – like what a perfect jam
session would sound like, only with more polish. Petty’s distinct vocals also
work to naturally pull everything together. He knows when to employ a gentle warble
and when to screech out grimy rebellion based on the individual needs of each
song.
My favourite track is the opening one. “Room
at the Top” is a song for standing on the veranda of a penthouse and reveling
in the euphoria of it all – or is it? The song is triumphant on the surface
(the chorus features the repeated declaration of “I ain’t comin’ down!”)
but just underneath all the opulence and excess is a deep loneliness. The real
story is who’s not in the room, and the song ends with late calls to a
loved one and sad disclaimers of “I ain’t so bad” from someone who has
no doubt been behaving badly. Proof that sometimes comin’ down is what’s called
for.
It is a theme that features heavily through
the record, even as Petty repeatedly explores the notion through the lens of defiance.
Whether that defiance is healthy is up for debate, but it does generate some of
the record’s better music including “This One’s For Me”, “No More”
and “Rhino Skin – the latter being a moody atmospheric number that would
be equally at home on a Dire Straits album.
Petty’s always been an artist who unapologetically
followed his own vision, and on “Echo” he begins to confront some of the repercussions
of that character trait. He was going through a lot back in 1999 (recent divorce
and battles with heroin addiction) and the songs on “Echo” show him wrestling those
demons in real time. While he doesn’t get a clear pin, he manages to fight them
off sufficiently to turn them into great songs. “Echo” is an incomplete exploration
of regret – one that would be fully realized on the masterful “Highway
Companion” seven years later – but it is a good start.
As I alluded earlier, the record is a bit too
long at 15 songs and 61 minutes. At the risk of second-guessing the great Rick
Rubin, I think I could find three songs to remove that would raise the overall
level of the record. Despite that, this record surprised me with how good it
was. Over the years I have generally advised casual fans to steer clear of it
in favour of other Tom Petty albums. While I still like plenty of his other
records more, for anyone I’ve told to skip this one entirely, I apologize. Don’t
do that.
Best tracks: Room at the Top, Free Girl Now, Accused of Love, Billy
the Kid, This One’s For Me, Rhino Skin
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