Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Echo - 1999

 

Although a Heartbreakers release this was an album far more like Wildflowers than Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) or Into The Great Wide Open and one that suffers from CD bloat in that it is way too long at over an hour. I prefer my Petty albums to be more all out rocking (as the afore-mentioned pair were) than ones like this one where the rock is mixed with introspective, sprawling ballads. 

This is just a matter of personal taste, of course, but I find this sounds like "just another Petty album". I know there are differences in his approach, as I have highlighted here, but, for me, there is a bit of a sameiness about this one. I know a lot of people like the album but, unfortunately, I just can't help but find it all a bit dull. 

Petty is down on this album too, due to his marriage-break up and an air of Blood On The Tracks melancholy pervades proceedings (although he rockingly tells her that she is a free girl now). 

Highlights are Swingin', Room At The Top and I Don't Wanna Fight (which has Mike Campbell from The Heartbreakers on lead vocals). 

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