Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Tom Petty & the HeartbreakersEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: Mca
Soundtracks:
- Refugee
- Here Comes My Girl
- Even The Losers
- Shadow Of A Doubt (Complex Kid)
- Century City
- Don't Do Me Like That
- You Tell Me
- What Are You Doin' In My Life
- Louisiana Rain
Free Music Notes for Damn the Torpedoes
Free Music Review: The quintessential Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album
Hit: 5 Stars
Those who thought that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers were punk or new wave when they started releasing albums in the late 1970s were missing the point. At a time when heavy metal and guitar rock was dominating the airwaves, this was a group that harkened back to the sounds of the British Invasion and embodied the spirit of the great American garage band. Petty wrote the songs that remind you of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and the Heartbreakers provided the backing. The group recorded a couple of early albums with Shelter records and started off as bigger hits in England than in the U.S. and then Shelter got gobbled up by MCA, which did not sit well with Petty. There were the first of many legal tangles between the two and "Damn the Torpedoes" was the result of a settlement. Released on an MCA subsidiary, Backstreet, the title was clearly a shot across the bow of MCA and their fight would be continued.
Despite the legal wrangler and creative disputes, this 1979 album would be the definitive release for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, combining some old songs from his early days in L.A. playing with Mudcrutch with some new songs. It was certainly the group's breakthrough effort, both a critical and commercial success. The album made it to #2 on the Billboard charts on the basis of a trio of strong songs. The opening track, the Top 20 "Refugee," written by Petty and Mike Campell," shows the deft touch of producer Jimmy Iovine, who put Benmont Tench's organ playing up front with the vocals. The song contrasts nicely with another Petty-Campbell hit, the melancholy but melodic "Here Comes My Girl." Add to this the album's one Top 10 hit, "Don't Do Me Like That," another song of love and deception, with another great organ solo from Tench.
The common denominator on these songs is their basic simplicity. A Tom Petty song is almost always based on just a few chords. Musically, these are very tight songs, which speaks to the heart of their appeal, and credit must be paid to Iovine's role as producer on this album. Lyrically the dominating theme is one of the pain of relationships and the tone is almost relentlessly melancholy, like on "Even the Losers." Even a ballad like "Louisiana Rain" wallows in the sadness of pain. The result is one of the best rock albums of the 1970s and although Tom Petty came close to this level again with "Hard Promises," "Full Moon Fever," and "Wildflowers," this remains the album you find on the top of the mountain.
Damn the Torpedoes Poster
To refer to Damn the Torpedoes as Tom Petty's breakthrough album is to seriously understate the case. His first two albums had already sold pretty decently and endeared him to America's rock press, but it took the success of Damn the Torpedoes to really establish Petty as one of the top names in mainstream rock. Though "Don't Do Me Like That" was the record's lone top 10 smash, nearly every song on it sounds like a hit; thanks to their timeless mix of Byrdsy jangle and Stonesy rock, "Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl," and "Even the Losers" still get plenty of classic-rock radio play, while "Shadow of a Doubt (Complex Kid)," "Century City," and "Louisiana Rain" are all minor classics in their own right. --Dan EpsteinPop Music CDs
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