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In particular, guitarist Mike Campbell played a key role in writing many of the band's biggest hits (and many lesser-known numbers as well), and he was one of those guitarists who did such an admirable job of not trying to draw attention to himself that he ultimately couldn't help but draw attention to himself.

A comparison can somewhat be made to the relationship of Elvis Costello and the Attractions (and later the Imposters), but best as I can tell the Heartbreakers were even more important to the output of Tom Petty than the Attractions were to Elvis Costello (who had many instances of very successful albums with different ensembles). So what exactly is the appeal? Well, for starters, when I refer to the output of "Tom Petty," more often than not I am actually referring to the output of "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers," even in some instances where Tom Petty had nominally created a solo album. Even if there's a pretty sizable gap between Petty's first tier of material and his second tier of material, his second tier is astonishingly large, and I mean that as a compliment there are few songs associated with him that I would classify as bad or that would make me go "ehn, I don't really feel like listening to this now." Very few of his albums strike me as amazing (my opinions on Petty are fairly conventional I'm not going to be the guy clever enough to randomly name Hard Promises as his best album or anything), but apart from some fairly predictable lapses in judgement in the middle of his career and a fairly predictable dip near the end (and even then the dip is almost negligible), his albums are strikingly consistent, with a small handful of great songs and a whole bunch of songs in the B or B+ range. Eventually, though, I found that his albums have a lot to offer beyond the hits, even if I tend to think that his hits rank among his very best songs. The Traveling Wilburys Vol.3 (Traveling Wilburys)įor many years, I had Tom Petty pegged as somebody good enough to make a terrific Greatest Hits compilation but not as somebody whose albums were worth listening to, apart from maybe Full Moon Fever (the best songs of which were on GH anyway).The Traveling Wilburys Vol.1 (Traveling Wilburys).Gainesville, Florida's Favorite Son (At Least If You Exclude Steve Spurrier) Tom Petty Completely confused by the rating system? Go here for an explanation.