Album: 'The Last DJ' - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Label: Warner Bros. Records

Released: Out Now! (2002)

Tom Petty is pissed off at the current state of music.  Mostly, by the overwhelming amount of greed that has infected it.  From the radio stations, to the commercial sponsorships, to corporate conglomerations to the executives and, even the artists themselves, no one escapes Petty’s ire. 

Sounds rather noble of Petty, doesn’t it?  Here is a guy deeply entrenched in the corporate world of rock ‘n roll (what with being on corporate monolith AOL/Time Warner and all) coming “knives out” against the very hand that feeds him, how could it not be?  Well, when you pull your punches with lofty production and tepid instrumentation, the impact of those lyrics are severely diminished, that’s how. 

Whether it was his insistence to his former label, MCA, to not up the price of his album Hard Promises by a dollar, or, his anger at being used by the former SFX Entertainment Group (now Clear Channel) as bait to lure other artists into national booking contracts, Petty has been a thorn in the side of the music industry from nearly day one.  Not satisfied to take anything lying down, he is on a mission to warn others of the perils of rock ‘n roll.

These moments of rebellion are all well and good, but on the new album, songs such as The Last DJ, Money Becomes King and Dreamville all suffer from Petty’s insistence in soft-pedaling the venom that burns in his gut. 

On The Last DJ, the line “Well you can’t turn him into a company man / You can’t turn him into a whore”, is lost amidst the chiming sounds of the twelve-string guitar and pleasantly chirpy backing vocals.  There is also the bad fortune that most of the song sounds exactly like The Hollies’ classic, Bus Stop.

Money Becomes King is highly reminiscent of Jon Brion’s work with Fiona Apple.  Ornate strings accentuate the story of “Johnny’s” truest fan, who turns on his hero. The fan and his buddies hock all of their possessions and sell a little dope, in the face of “Johnny’s” tickets doubling in price.  “Johnny” (a left over character from Petty’s album, Into The Great Wide Open), comes out onstage and “lip-synchs his new lite beer commercial”.  Tightening the screws on people extends even to the fans that will pay no matter what the price.  When Petty sings, “They sat in golden circles / waiters served them wine / and talked through all the music”; further singing “Johnny rocked that golden circle / and all those VIPs / and that music that had freed us / had become a tired routine”.  What great lyrics, right?  But, the music is simply a bunch of saccharine garbage that destroys the spirit of those lyrics.

Dreamville starts out as a low-key number, slightly familiar to Southern Accents’ title track, but then the horns and cello kick in and ruin the pleasant nostalgia of “Going down to Lillian’s music store / To buy black diamond strings / gonna wind it up on my guitar / gonna make that silver sing”.  This is Petty’s problem on most of the album, self-sabotage.  Sparser arrangements and an angrier spirit would have better served most of the songs on this album.

Which leads to the one complete saving grace of the album: Joe.  Joe is everything that this album should have been, full of vile, venomous hatred that aims both barrels at those in power within the record industry.  Consisting of just two guitars, Petty’s voice, keyboards, drums and bass, Petty realizes his anger into a concise 3:15 song.  Guitarist Mike Campbell is finally freed from his restraints to belt out a blistering solo.  As Joe, the CEO, Petty spits out one bitter pill after another. “Bring me a girl / they’re always the best / you put ‘em onstage and you have ‘em undress / some angel-whore that can learn a guitar lick / Hey! / now that’s what I call music”.  On the artists that sue their labels for money owed to them: “Well they’ll come looking for money when the public gets bored / I will fight ‘em with lawyers they can never afford / yeah I’ll make her look like a spoiled little bitch / she gets to be famous, I get to be rich”.  

Like A Diamond, amazingly, is a song rife with opportunities for orchestral arrangements that, thankfully, never come.  Benmont Tench is able to deliver some deft piano work and synthesizer flourishes to give the song its mournful sound without relying on any heavy-handed strings. 

Have Love, Will Travel and the album’s closer, Can’t Stop The Sun end the album on a high note.  Travel boasts one of the album’s few unadulterated rockers, while Sun is Petty’s final word on his future in the music industry.  Singing, “And you may think that you control things / but there’ll be more just like me / who won’t give in / we’ll rise again”.

While Petty is to be commended for putting himself on the line in some manner for his beliefs, the spirit of music would fare better if people of his stature took a harder stance than he does here.  By undercutting the message, Petty has taken the air out of the argument before it has even begun.  He’s right; there will be more just like him.  There’d be even more if he hadn’t second-guessed himself.

Brett Hickman