Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
The Last DJ
2002 Warner Bros.
Why was it forgotten?
Between the releases of 1999’s Echo and today’s entry, 2002’s The Last DJ, a strange thing happened to Tom Petty, and, by extension, his heartbreakers. Like Aerosmith, the Who, the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead and countless others before them, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers became a nostalgia act.
We’ve all seen it countless times. A one-time cutting edge band, successful in their prime both in the studio and on tour, becomes older, starts making bad decisions, releases a few half-hearted albums, and then says “Fuck it, no new material, we’ll just trot out the old hits every summer from now on”. Not that I mind that in most instances. If only Aerosmith had gone out to pasture completely; we would have been spared Just Push Play and Honkin’ on Bobo.
To be fair, it often isn’t the fault of the musicians that this happens to them. Tom Petty didn’t really do anything to bring this on. His clientele became older, his studio albums became less important (and less good), and people stopped being interested in anything new he had to say. He didn’t consciously change his image or the music in the three years between Echo and The Last DJ, but his fans and the musical climate as a whole changed. They didn’t stop liking him, but they stopped liking anything written after 1995.
The Last DJ had a minor hit with, you guessed it, “The Last DJ”, which saw intermittent classic rock radio airplay in the fall of 2002. By and large, the album vanished, only leaving behind a trail of scathing reviews. So did Tom Petty actually release something worthwhile after we all stopped listening?
Should it be forgotten?
Short answer: yes. The album starts with the title track, “The Last DJ”, which I mentioned provided the only minor hit from the album. It is the best song on the album (which we’ll learn isn’t saying much), but it certainly doesn’t give the listener the kick they’re accustomed to from the lead single from a Tom Petty album.
The lyrics to this song, in retrospect, are incredibly shortsighted and dated. The song is about Petty lamenting the marginalization and death of the free-spinning FM disc jockey in the face of corporate radio. Petty sings in the chorus, “There goes your freedom of choice / There goes the last human voice / There goes the last DJ.” Keep in mind this was written and released in 2002, when there was no iTunes and your average slob was still not very Internet savvy. I understand Petty could not have known this would be coming, but the slow death of terrestrial radio and the advent of the Internet as a place to listen to and discover new music has been a godsend for new and oft-undiscovered bands trying to get their music out there. I understand that corporate radio sucks, but anyone who wants to listen to good music isn’t listening to it anyway. Petty is lamenting something that doesn’t require it, because as he is placing the wreath on the coffin of the goofy afternoon DJ, an entirely new crop of artists are taking advantage of that situation. It makes him look like an old fart.
But at least that song doesn’t fully embarrass himself. He gets to that over the next few songs. “Money Becomes King” follows, which is about a simpler time, when money didn’t rule the world, man. This song would be blush-inducing to the most corporation-hating of hippies. ”Dreamville” follows, which finally provides a song that isn’t terrible. It uses a horn section nicely and its structure is nice, but it continues the ham fisted procession of “I wish it was the old days” tunes.
Then we have “Joe”. Allmusic.com calls it “easily the worst song he’s ever written”, though I came to that conclusion before I read their review. This song could not want to be Pink Floyd’s “Money” more. I actually somewhat appreciated the staggered riff of the chorus, but Petty trying to be the champion of the downtrodden little-guy musician is so fucking lame.
In listening to these first four tracks, with this sappy morose yearning for the good old days (“when entertainment was bland and inoffensive”, according to Abraham Simpson), I began to think that maybe Petty did have a hand in dating himself. Though I think that transformation took hold before this record came out, anyone that was left thirsting for new Petty must have been quickly turned away by these utterly joyless and soulless songs.
Finally, finally, we get a boring but palatable track with “When a Kid Goes Bad”, with a nice sounding bluesy intro riff nearly ruined by a lame chorus. Nondescript songs continue to come and go from here, ranging from listenable to putrid. “Like a Diamond” and “You and Me” are nice enough, but are so light and airy that I began daydreaming while listening, and not about anything good.
“The Man Who Loves Women” mixes Paul Anka with the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four”, with predictably mixed results. I guess my question is, why? This song is about a guy who goes on a lot of dates. He’s a real Casanova. OK. So what? It’s not subtle and it doesn’t say anything. Why the fuck should I care?
The Last DJ tries way too hard and his theses throughout the album are so embarrassingly on the nose and done to death that they have no meaning. It does pick up slightly towards its conclusion, but there’s such a back and forth of passable and crap to that point that it’s hard to get worked up about it. This album stars an unmotivated Petty, short on ideas and shorter on the will to make them work. Honestly, I don’t ever envision hearing these songs again.
D
John Lacey
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