Disc of the day
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
Features Disc of the day
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
Greatest Hits
(MCA/Island, 1993)
Almost two decades of AOR monster hits from the stonewashed Bob Dylan.
Anyone tuned to 6Music or Radio 2 this week will have heard the new Foo Fighters single, Wheels. The one that opens "I know what you're thinking / We're all going down". Actually Dave, what many of us will be thinking is "Oh my God, that's Learning To Fly by Tom Petty!" Which it is, from its lolloping, southern road-trip backbeat to the radio-friendly harmonies, the similarities are startling. It'll be interesting to see what the writing credits on the Foos' single read like, but undeniably, both are thumping good pop songs and so utterly MOR as to have the megawatt musos in this office teetering on the window ledge (don't do it boys! We haven't had the Stevie Nicks duet yet!).
The Foos' single is a previously unreleased appendage to their new Greatest Hits, much like Petty's cover of Thunderclap Newman's Something In The Air which closed his Greatest Hits in 1993 (bumped on a 2008 edition in favour of that slightly plodding 1981 duet with Nicks, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around). Also new at the time was the excellent Byrds-y, Mary Jane's Last Dance, a Rick Rubin-produced kitchen sink drama of a sort that Petty does so well.
Spanning 1976-'93, from The Heartbreakers debut (the rollicking American Girl and Breakdown) to Petty's post-Traveling Wilburys compositions with Jeff Lynne (including worm-that-turned anthem I Won't Back Down, and Grohl fave, Learning To Fly) Petty's songs share a rootsy, comfort fit that ensured hits at home in the US (though The Heartbreakers new-wavy mid-'70s sound first broke in the UK) but resist schmaltz in so much as fate almost always twists the wrong way against his denim-clad protagonists. A career studded with record label wrangling plays out via aspiring rocker "Eddie" in The Great Wide Open ("The A&R man said I don't hear a single") and Petty himself once declared bankruptcy after his first label was bought by MCA. And if Foo Fighters' new single appears to signal further legal wrangling it would be wise to remember that Grohl himself tried out for The Heartbreakers just after Nirvana ended, drumming with them on Saturday Night Live in 1994. Curiouser and curiouser.
Jenny Bulley
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 05/10/2009
Further Listening
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (Shelter, 1976)
Tom Petty - Wildflowers (Warner Bros, 1994)
Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose (RCA, 1999)
Previous Disc of the day
-
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
6:00 AM GMT 20/11/2009
-
-
Isley Brothers - The Brothers: Isley
The Cincinnati siblings bed into their heavy period.
6:00 AM GMT 18/11/2009
-
Lee Morgan - Search For The New Land
The trumpeter's most soulful excursion entrances MOJO messageboarder.
6:00 AM GMT 16/11/2009
-
-
end of body content back to top
Footer
Join us on:
© Copyright Bauer - all
rights reserved.
Reproduction of this
website, in whole or in
part, in any form or
medium without express
written permission from
Bauer is prohibited. All
use is subject to our
Terms of Use
|
|
Comments
Comment on this post
Comment on this post