deadmilkboy's Full Review: The Last DJ by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers release THE LAST DJ, their first album ever since he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, on October 8, 2002. The Warner Bros.-distributed release is their first studio album since 1998’s ECHO, and now they’ve decided to do something sort of strange with this album. He fashions it into a concept album, complete with an underlying theme: The music industry is a bunch of corporate demons designed solely to profit on suckers. And how! The solution is to rise above, as the album’s soft-spoken lead voice does throughout.
The man who once declared war on MCA for album prices going up has decided to full-on tackle the sleaziness of this whole merry-go-round. And the man, Tom Petty, who is growing into the middle-aged years, has decided its time to rage against the machine after plenty of experience. But Petty is still driven musically for Beatles, Byrds and Bobby Dylan, and for all the biting commentary on sell-outs and sleazy moguls, the music sounds like vintage Petty. And this gun-slinging classic rock everyman has always played by his own rules, not allowing any type of corporate sponsorship or over-priced grandeur.
But here he’s got his old friends from The Heartbreakers on board, although some familiar names are missing. Gone is bassist Howie Epstein, who is replaced by original bassist and "late arrival" Ron Blair, and also drummer Stan Lynch, who played with Petty’s Heartbreakers since their career kick started (his replacement is Steve Ferrone). There’s also several other additions to the remaining members (Petty, guitarist/bassist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench), including Scott Thurston on steel guitar and ukulele and Lenny Castro on percussion. Finally is the presence of one special guest, Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac on backing vocals during The Man Who Loves Women. This set is produced not by Rick Rubin or Jeff Lynne, but by George Drakoulias with Petty and Campbell. At times it feels heavy-handed, but Petty rises above some of the awry arrangements and comes out a winner, like all great rockers before him.
The album opens with two brilliant bits of disillusioned optimism, first the title number, The Last DJ. A jangly classic rock reworking of The Clash's "London Calling" in my opinion, it rides an acoustic strum/electric-melody guitar blend powered by hefty drum beats and Petty’s raspy voice. "Well you can’t turn him into a company man/You can’t turn him into a wh*re/And the boys upstairs just don’t understand anymore," opens Petty, in a song that mourns the loss of freedom on the airwaves. The DJ used to play what he wanted to play and said what he felt, but then corporations who "celebrate mediocrity" send him away to a pirate radio station in Mexico, Petty’s salvation from the mess. It makes me think of the radio station that E Street member Steven Van Zandt has and how he could be "The Last DJ" in some way.
The message rings clear on the first track as it does on the second, Money Becomes King, a bluesy ballad with orchestra arrangements by Petty and Jon Brion. The fictional Johnny (a familiar rock star name, isn‘t it?) is a cat "who loved to play and sing when money wasn’t king," and how the friends in the lyrics would always love the chance to pay to go to his show. But then commerciality rears its ugly head…
"Well I ain’t sure how it happened, and I don’t know exactly when
But everything got bigger, and the rules began to bend
And the TV taught the people how to get their hair to shine
And how sweet life can be if they keep a tight behind
And they raised the cost of living, and how could we have known
They’d double the price of tickets to go see Johnny’s show."
They pawn their possessions and sell dope, but once they get there, it’s too late…Johnny sold his soul to promote lite beer, and he becomes a corporate arena sensation. "There was no use in pretending/No magic left to hear/All the music gave me was a craving for lite beer/As I walked out of the arena, my ears began to ring/And money became king."
Dreamville is innocence maintained, a beautiful blend of gorgeous piano, acoustic guitar and strings welded together in classic Beatles style. One of the really good tracks on the album, it proves that music is spiritual and can rise above the trappings:
"Goin’ down to Lillian’s music store, to buy a black diamond string
Gonna wind it up on my guitar, gonna make that silver sing…
Like it was in Dreamville, where I was born, light years from here, and the trees were green
In Dreamville."
The youthful majesty of that track kicks back into the grease with the arrival of Joe, a bad man! A lock-step jumbler about the kind of cigar-lipped honcho who exploits to be rich, its an unhealthy reminder of John Fogerty’s spiteful 1981 track, "Zanz Kant Danz":
"My name is Joe, I’m the CEO
Yeah, I’m the man, makes the big wheels roll
I’m the hand on the green light switch
You get to be famous, I get to be rich
Go get me a kid with a good-looking face
Bring me a kid, can remember his place
Some hungry poet son-of-a-b*tch
He gets to be famous, I get to be rich
Or bring me a girl, they’re always the best
You put ’em onstage and you have ’em undress
Some angel wh*re who can learn a guitar lick
Hey, that’s what I call music!"
The mess doesn’t stop yet with When A Good Kid Goes Bad, a swaggering, ham-handed ballad that is the antithesis of that last good song I mentioned. Innocence is sent to hell for a moment in this one, a song about a kid whose troubled and psychotic.
"You built for innocence, you built for joy
Suddenly evil’s all that you enjoy
But if you shoot at every one you see
Well, you can’t be my friend ’cause you might shoot at me."
Finally, we start to get more of the perspective of a true hero, the kind of guy Petty was as a kid perhaps, on the pretty Like A Diamond. It’s a song all about endurance, gorgeous and punctuated by piano and guitar solo. And Petty’s voice cools down with hope:
"Madmen crawl across the wall
Knight gets away, kings all fall
Queens chase men, saints all sin
And good things all must end
But she goes on forever, she goes on forever
Yeah, she’s gonna shine forever, like a diamond in the sunlight."
Petty sends a sentimental homage to all of the Lost Children on the next song, but luckily doesn’t make the mistake Michael Jackson did with his similarly titled song. Here the song, driven by fruitful urgency and some wah-wah touches, feels as if Petty’s asking for all rock and roll dreamers to be led to the light as he comes closer to being devoured by the machine that devoured poor Johnny:
"Lord please watch over all these lost children
Born to chase the hurricane
Please shine some light down on those who wander
Filled with hunger and pain."
A mellow bit of country rock sunshine pops up on the filler-y Blue Sunday, an acoustic/steel guitar western piece about meeting a girl on the interstate. "Her back seat could have been a hotel/I slept for a thousand years," Petty confides on this one, before he decides to ramble on. "Yeah, you know me/We’ve never met before/It’s a blue Sunday/When it’s time to leave, you go." But then a change of heart comes along when Petty offers a moment of relief on the Interstate Love Song You And Me, an upbeat piece where the boy vows that "Wherever the wind might blow/Wherever the river rolls/You know I will go with you/Just you and me/And the road ahead."
Time to meet The Man Who Loves Women, a near-novelty bit with ukulele and off-the-wall musical delivery on all sides, as we learn about the basic attitude of all male rock stars:
"He’s quite prepared to mingle, comes on like he’s single
He’s the man who loves women, and falling in love’s just his way
One of these days he’s gonna pay for falling in love every day."
The song ends on Lindsey Buckingham’s guest vocals, as he sings "Stay away, he’s the man who loves women."
Have Love Will Travel is the album’s next best cut next to Dreamville, a near climactic close to the concept of the album, as it returns the cast of characters in a nice little love song about endurance of love in the world of rock and roll:
"Maggie’s still trying to rope a tornado
Joe’s in the backyard trying to keep things simple
And the lonely DJ’s digging a ditch
Trying to keep the flames from the temple
Oh, and if perhaps I lose you in the smoke down the road
I want you to know you were the one."
On Can’t Stop The Sun, Petty rests assured in that nobody can take away his spirit, even if they take away his musical craft. And that a generation of Dreamville residents will refuse to bow down to the business men who refuse to bow down. And in the end, that’s the spirit of Tom Petty and his definitive guitar rock style, something that can’t become faded. The gunslinger jumps up on his horse before he rides off into the sunset of loud, electric guitars, leaving behind these words of warning:
"And you may think you control things
But there’ll be more just like me who won’t give in
Who’ll rise again…
Can’t stop a man from dreaming on and on and on."
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
This is how I should end the album, knowing that the spirit of rock and roll lives inside Tom Petty, but I’m a collector, and so I thought I’d share with you information about the limited versions of THE LAST DJ CD, which comes available with special behind-the-scenes DVD that runs 38 minutes, 30 seconds. "Boy, this is one you’re gonna wanna own, because it’s a lot of fun. The band and I had a lot of fun making it, and we’re gonna have fun talking about it," opens Petty on this collection of session footage featuring a brief moment of Tom Petty explaining the album’s meaning, as well as in-studio music videos for The Last DJ, Have Love Will Travel, Dreamville, Joe, Money Becomes King and a sample of Can’t Stop The Sun. Petty then explains the basic nature of the rock star he’s lambasting on the CD, and describes it as a "loose concept album" before we get our last clip, The Lost Children. Petty sends it goodbye with his own comments on his past and view of America linked to the music industry, and an acoustic jingle, too. Recommended for all those who are Tom Petty fans with DVD players, like me.
Released in 2002, The Last DJ features Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at their finest, with the songs Money Becomes King, Dreamville, and the superb ti...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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