Anthology: Through the Years (2000)
Disc One
1. Breakdown
2. American Girl
3. Hometown Blues
4. The Wild One, Forever
5. I Need to Know
6. Listen to Her Heart
7. Too Much Ain't Enough
8. Refugee
9. Here Comes My Girl
10.Don't Do Me Like That
11.Even the Losers
12.The Waiting
13.A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)
14.Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
15.You Got Lucky
16.Straight Into Darkness
17.Change of Heart
Disc Two
1. Rebels
2. Don't Come Around Here No More
3. The Best of Everything
4. So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star
5. Jammin' Me
6. It'll All Work Out
7. Love is a Long Road
8. Free Fallin'
9. Yer So Bad
10.I Won't Back Down
11.Runnin' Down a Dream
12.Learning to Fly
13.Into the Great Wide Open
14.Two Gunslingers
15.Mary Jane's Last Dance
16.Waiting for Tonight
17.Surrender
Another Greatest Hits package, and while such releases often feel redundant or label-driven, this one earns its place—if only by sheer volume. Unlike the original 1993 compilation, which remains a model of single-disc economy, Anthology: Through the Years expands the scope across two discs, and the result is, inevitably, superior. Petty simply had too much essential material to be contained within a single volume, and this expanded edition offers a more comprehensive, if still imperfect, overview.
The selection leans heavily on the MCA era, and understandably so. With Petty having moved to Warner Bros. in the mid-’90s, none of that later material is represented here—a limitation of licensing rather than curatorial oversight. Still, the choices within those boundaries occasionally raise an eyebrow: a few fan favorites are absent, while some lesser entries are given surprising prominence. But the sequencing flows well, the presentation is solid, and the ratio of hits to deep cuts is generally well-judged.
The real revelation is the inclusion of Surrender, an unreleased track dating back to the late 1970s. That it remained in the vaults for so long is mystifying. It bears all the hallmarks of peak-era Petty—tight construction, melodic bite, and an effortlessly confident vocal. That it fits so seamlessly alongside the better-known hits only underscores the strength of his early catalogue, and reinforces the notion that Petty’s “leftovers” often surpassed the A-sides of lesser peers.
As a retrospective, Anthology: Through the Years isn’t definitive—few such compilations are—but it offers an impressively broad and satisfying sweep of Petty’s first two decades. For those who missed the deeper turns of the earlier albums, this provides both a primer and a rediscovery. Not essential if one already owns the studio records, but for the curious or the casual listener, it remains an eminently listenable summary of an artist who made greatness look deceptively easy.
Go back to the main page
Go To Next Review