Quote:
Originally Posted by snake911
I've never been a big Tom Petty fan. Nothing against him, just not really moved much by anything I had heard. Then I was camping with a buddy a few weeks back and he was playing Highway Companion while we sat around the campfire and I really enjoyed it. So, I picked up the LP last night and holy shit thats a pretty awesome album, so I'm looking at the liner notes and its nearly all Tom Petty on every instrument. So I'm thinking, maybe I just don't like the Heartbreakers? So Tom Petty fans. What other non-heartbreakers stuff is out there?
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Highway Companion is amazing and highly underrated. Square One is one of the best ballads he's ever written. Flirting With Time is a favorite of mine as well.
For "non Heartbreakers," he has 3 solo albums - Full Moon Fever, Wildflowers, and Highway Companion. All 3 still heavily involve Mike Campbel. FMF and Highway have other members of the Heartbreakers as support in some spots, while Wildflowers is really a TP & The Heartbreakers album in all but name (and also quite possibly his best.)
To me it's less about the band as it is about his overall sound - IMO there's a very clear divide between his early 70s/80's work and his later stuff. Full Moon Fever is the dividing point for me where the sound gets rootsier, more introspective and he really started painting with a wider palette. I love the early stuff too, but to me he's that rarest of artists that got better with age. Echo is an absolutely stunning record, but doesn't get a lot of attention because it came from a really dark place in his life and they rarely did stuff from it live after it came out. (Though he started to throw in 'Swingin'' which is one of my favorites on the final tour.)