Wildflowers (1994)
1. Wildflowers
2. You Don't Know How It Feels
3. Time to Move On
4. You Wreck Me
5. It's Good to Be King
6. Only a Broken Heart
7. Honey Bee
8. Don't Fade On Me
9. Hard On Me
10.Cabin Down Below
11.To Find a Friend
12.A Higher Place
13.House in the Woods
14.Crawling Back to You
15.Wake Up Time
If anyone needed any proof that Tom
Petty should be mentioned along the great rock and roll artists of all
time, they need not look further than this album. He's put out a lot of
incredible material, yet this record is arguably his best. The first
instinct is to describe this record as "stripped down", but that might
lead one to believe that it's one of those unplugged/acoustic jobs.
This is not the case. It's just a more simple record in terms of
its production. Gone are the pulsating electric keyboards and reverb
from the early Jimmy Iovine records that seemed perfect for the bowling
alley and the skating rink. Nowhere is the Jeff Lynne "wall of sound"
Wilbury influence that dominated his last two records present either.
Strange because both of the above "eras" were great in their own
respective ways, but this record is just much more fresh. Had the songs
not been incredible, none of this change would have mattered. But Petty
churns out his best well crafted set of songs ever, even though the
album doesn't rock quite as hard as some of his early material. Apart
from the great tracks You Wreck Me and Honey Bee, the
album is a much more quiet, introspective piece, but it never puts you
to sleep - it's just not quite so overpowering.
To be brutally honest, the last 1/3 of the album sounds as though he's
on auto-pilot, and whereas the songs are quite good, they don't quite
knock you over as being quite as awesome as the first ten songs. This
would lead some to argue that this album should have been shorter
in length. I dunno. I would just pretend the last five songs are
"bonus" tracks, since I'm sure everyone has their favorites.
His best of the best.
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