Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Item: The Last DJ
Author: Steve Stockman

The Last DJ

(2002)

Reviewed by Steve Stockman

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Label Warner Bros. RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2002

heartland rock roots rock

What is it with the 50-somethings? In the past 12 months we have had great albums with some serious depth from Springsteen, Waits, Browne, and Earle (okay he's nearly 50!) and now Harrison and Petty have added their names to the list. That Harrison's rotated the soul like a plough would be no surprise but Petty's soap box prophecies come with the freshness of pleasant surprise and the music though hardly a reinvention bristles with a sharpness that makes marks on the audio senses.

To name check Harrison in the same breath is actually very fitting. The opening track on The Last DJ could sit alongside Harrison's Brainwashed counterpart "Any Road" on a Traveling Wilburys' Volume 6 if we'd been blessed with such a product. There is the energy of that acoustic Byrdsian sound and Petty's languishing and lazy drawl being to the south what Dylan was to the north and Harrison was to England. To think they were all in one band. The playing throughout is the Heartbreakers at the very peak of performance with their most varied and sturdy collection of songs for a considerable time. Campbell's guitar is sheer beauty on vinyl (or whatever that substance is CDs are printed on!) and Tench's piano is further forward than ever and lifts the entire thing. Another nod to his Beatles mate George is the ukulele's presence; a revival perhaps!

Petty is sounding caustic ("The Last DJ," "Money Becomes King," and "Joe"), sarcastic ("The Man Who Loves Women"), sympathetic ("When A Kid Goes Bad"), humorous (throughout!!!!) and lovingly tender ("Like a Diamond"). What seems to have sharpened Petty's tongue and pen is the coup d'état that has had the businessmen taking over from the artists in the recording studios, radio stations and concert venues. Petty is shooting off against the marketing out of freedom on radio playlists making DJs robots for the men selling advertising, the dollar becoming the bottom line on all matters of artistic decision making and lashes out at the Record Company executives who exploit the good looking teens to con the public into making him not the exploited teens rich! It is all heavy stuff and fair play to Warner to release it. Of course there are songs of love, prayers for the children of a beat up world, the trouble with philanderers and the sadness for parents when their children become the next villain of some High School shooting.

Of course the ills of the music industry are not confined. This is a look at a world where men and women in suits sit around tables and decide how they can make themselves wealthy by conning the rest of us into buying products we do not really need at horrendously expensive prices. There is no longer an interest in the needs of the customer; it is all about the needs of the seller. They have made shopping the opium of the people, shopping meals the place of our worship and sadly shallow meaning. Petty concludes with a warning that we all might hope comes true:

Hey mister business man
Be sure to wash your hands
Be careful where you stand
We won't give in
Who'll rise again
Can't stop a man from dreaming
On and on and on

And we are back to Harrison who claims we have been brainwashed by the spirit of the age, the material world. Petty doesn't cite God as any answer like Harrison does but he reveals the disease that is being passed on to us all. And he reveals it in another classic album from one of our classic acts. Now where are the young prophets?