By RUSSELL BAILLIE
(Herald rating: * * * *)
Tom Petty may have started seeing other people when he began a run of solo albums in the late 1980s but his best work has always been in the relationship with the band which he's fronted since the mid-70s.
That's a feat which Anthology
liner note writer Cameron Crowe says makes them "the greatest and most consistent American band of the last 25 years." This compile of Petty and co's back catalogue follows a shallow 1993 greatest collection and a recent (too) deep box set, its double-CD starting with 1976's Breakdown and ending 33 tracks later with Surrender, a time capsule of a song written by Petty in 1977 but unrecorded until last year
So disc one is big on the early years with the key moments from the band's self-titled debut and the 1979 classic breakthrough album Damn The Torpedoes (Refugee, Don't Do Me Like That), along with their moment as a surrogate Fleetwood Mac on the Stevie Nicks duet Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.
The second half covers everything since the mid-80s (complete with era-echoing production from the likes of Dave Stewart and Jeff Lynn), showing that Petty and band have forged a line between being a blue collar rockpop outfit of 60s-throwback tendencies (see their live version of So You Wanna Be a Rock'N'Roll Star, the Byrds' song they made their own) and makers of occasional, witty MTV-friendly hits (the sitar and synths of Don't Come Around Here No More). Though there are plenty of tracks which managed to deliver hooks as well as Petty's classic songcraft, such as Free Fallin', I Won't Back Down and Mary Jane's Last Dance.
A solid, satisfying collection for both fans and first-timers.
Label: MCA
