Into the Great Wide Open (1991)
1. Learning to Fly
2. Kings Highway
3. Into the Great Wide Open
4. Two Gunslingers
5. The Dark of the Sun
6. All or Nothin'
7. All the Wrong Reasons
8. Too Good To Be True
9. Out in the Cold
10.You and I Will Meet Again
11.Makin' Some Noise
12.Built to Last
Coming off the enormous and wholly unexpected success of Full Moon Fever, Tom Petty did what many artists in similar situations have done—he retraced his steps. Into the Great Wide Open was, for all intents and purposes, designed as a direct sequel, a spiritual “Part Two” to its blockbuster predecessor. And with Jeff Lynne again enlisted as co-producer and co-writer, the sonic continuity is not just apparent—it’s practically the album’s thesis statement.
In some ways, this mirrors the arc of Petty’s career a decade earlier. Just as Hard Promises followed the monumental Damn the Torpedoes with a collection of worthy (if slightly less incandescent) material, so too does Into the Great Wide Open come across as a very good album chasing the long shadow of a great one. The familiar Lynne production signatures—stacked acoustics, shimmering backgrounds, pristine compression—are all present. And while Petty is nominally reunited with the Heartbreakers for this outing, the distinction feels largely academic. Much like its predecessor, the record is defined more by studio craft than band dynamics.
The front end is, without question, its strongest. Learning to Fly is a gently soaring anthem, and King’s Highway may well be one of Petty’s most overlooked gems—both melodically rich and emotionally grounded. The title track, Into the Great Wide Open, continues Petty’s gift for observational character sketches, here chronicling the rise and fall of a would-be rock star with a wink and a wince. Unfortunately, once past the third track, the album becomes a touch static. The middle sequence—while never poor—suffers from a certain tonal sameness. The songs blur rather than distinguish, and the feeling persists that you’ve heard this before, often within the same running order.
Things recover slightly toward the close. All the Wrong Reasons and Built to Last provide some final lift, but the impression remains: the album is finely crafted, competently played, but a shade too derivative of its more inspired predecessor. For newcomers, there’s little reason to own both; for those already well-acquainted with Full Moon Fever, this may feel more like a continuation than a necessity.
That said, this was still Petty in fine form. No major misfires, no embarrassing left turns—just a talented artist refining, rather than reinventing, his sound. And if the follow-up lacked the spark of its elder sibling, it at least maintained the flame. Not surprisingly, Petty would pivot again soon after, perhaps sensing that the well had grown slightly shallow. But if this record marked the end of a particular creative phase, it did so with grace and craftsmanship intact.
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