Far Out Magazine recently did a comparison between Tom Petty and Elvis Costello. It made the case for their careers being played out in parallel on different sides of the Atlantic. I had never made the connection before. I always thought of Petty as being pure Americana whilst Costello was the twisted, bitter Englishman.
I’ve been wanting an excuse to dive into early Tom Petty for some time. I can now see the point Far Out was making. This could quite easily be early 80’s Costello but with a slight American twist.
He knows how to craft a song but more importantly he knows how to add a twist to the lyric, leaving the songs to mean something else entirely. There’s also more than a hat tip to early Springsteen. Petty is great at crafting mini soap operas around his characters. This is a very worthy album.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐