Happy 52nd Birthday to Tom Petty!!!

Petty runs down, and over, American dream
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

MALIBU, Calif. — Embattled and embittered, Tom Petty takes on the music industry and corporate America on The Last DJ, the rocker's battle cry for moral reform.

He targets money-grubbing moguls, tour sponsorships, radio's homogenized playlists and apathetic fans, all metaphors for grander crimes rampant in a profit-driven society. On Money Becomes King, a fan sees rock 'n' roll idealism trampled under a greed stampede. The title track bemoans the personality-free monotony on airwaves. Joe studies revenue gluttons who poison art.

"I left nobody out," Petty says. "I pick on the artist, the audience, everyone. And not just in the music industry. It could be any business. The problem is greed, pure and simple. Never mind a healthy profit; the idea is: 'We want all the money we can get. We want every damn dime out there, and our computers can show us where every dime is.' The mom-and-pop store had to care about its customers and its products to survive. These giant corporations don't care about anything but profit."

Petty, a longtime observer of America's cultural decline, began writing this concept album two years ago, fully aware that taking potshots at record and radio conglomerates could ricochet and damage his career. Yet Warner Bros. lauded his tack as bold, and radio quickly embraced The Last DJ. Though relieved by the industry's reception, Petty won't back down.

"We're all working for the man, whether we like it or not," he says. "It's hard to know who you work for. You climb the ladder and look around, and nobody's there. That instills in people a kind of apathy. They don't really care about much beyond getting off work at 6 because they're not going to change anything and nobody notices if they do something good or bad."

He says that music execs, indifferent to rock's primal powers, have diluted and contaminated the genre, rendering it a generic tool for Madison Avenue. Boardroom avarice isn't solely to blame.

Consumers "have been anesthetized," he says. "Standards go down, we settle for less. A CD is not expected to have more than one or two good songs. And I find it amazing that audiences accept lip-syncing in live shows."

Clad in black and sporting sunglasses, the rail-thin musician appears almost vampirish, wispy blond hair framing his pallid complexion as he lights a third cigarette. Yet he seems perfectly at ease in the incongruous setting of sunshine and surf off his beachside inn's balcony. That kind of contradiction also tugs at The Last DJ, grim tales related with humor and engaging characters. Bad news abounds, but optimism blooms in psychedelic romp Can't Stop the Sun, the closing track that counters Petty's cynicism.

"It can get better if a little bit of conscience and morality and truth comes back," he says. "I love this music, and I don't want to see it reduced to some kind of lumbering cartoon. There's nothing to be gained by pessimism. My motivation is to raise the question. None of us seem to be enjoying popular entertainment. It's missing an element of truth, almost to a crisis proportion."

Though disheartened by record-business failures, Petty reserves his harshest criticism for television.

"TV's downright dangerous," he says. "It endangers every one of us. There's an industry that makes the music business look like Boy Scouts. You would have thought you'd see a drastic change in attitude and maybe some moral responsibility in the wake of 9/11. I've seen no change other than an effort to cash in on the flag and patriotism."

He has a personal ax to grind as well. Before he was bestowed with MTV's Video Vanguard Award for adventurous artistry in 1994, Petty fought to get airtime for his eccentric concept videos featuring animation and cameos by the likes of Johnny Depp and Kim Basinger. MTV wanted Petty singing and playing guitar. Flash forward to 2002, when sister network VH1 rejects his studio documentary.

"It's a land of censorship and dumb ideas," he declares. "The response was, 'We can't have a film of musicians playing instruments. Can't you do a funny concept video?' I've given up on the video world. I'm bowing out, at least for now."

The boob tube isn't all bad, he concedes. He has agreed to numerous appearances to compensate for shrinking promotional avenues open to boomer rock these days. And he'll star on the season premiere of The Simpsons Nov. 10.

"My family went ape when I was asked to do an episode," says the twice-married father of two daughters and a stepson. "It's as if I'd never accomplished anything in my life. For them, this is the absolute pinnacle of my career."

Petty's real statement: We flat-out rock
Review Whether 'The Last DJ' works as a concept album or not, he and the Heartbreakers show their chops are tops.

By BEN WENER
The Orange County Register

There is little doubt that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' new album, "The Last DJ," has garnered the most mixed reviews of the Hall of Famers' lengthy career. Entertainment Weekly loved it, Blender hated it, Rolling Stone sat on the fence.

It has been praised for its righteousness, applauded for its attacks on corporate greed, hailed as one of the most important albums of the year. It also has been called Petty's first unmitigated flop, the 52- year-old Malibu dweller deemed cranky and condescendingly didactic, accused of biting - no, chomping - the hand that feeds him.

Just the sort of album that demands to be heard.

And there was no better way to hear it than live in its entirety Tuesday night at the rarely used Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Though only a lucky thousand or so nabbed tickets to the unique event (which repeated Wednesday), scores more heard it on radio broadcasts (KLOS carried it) or witnessed the concert via satellite in one of 40 movie theaters nationwide.

It was a golden opportunity for Petty to turn the screws on an industry crowd from within the belly of the beast, and he made the most of it, tossing out cutting asides before many tracks. About the wistful "Dreamville": "This is supposed to take you back to when times were good whenever that was." About the ruthless "Joe": "This is an attempt to personalize the corporate executive - if that can be done."

And just before the album's finest moment, one of Petty's most beautiful numbers, "Like a Diamond": "I've read a lot lately. I guess they think I'm mad. I'm not really mad. I think there's a lot of hope left in the world."

He has a point. "The Last DJ" has its share of outspoken moments, but excepting "Joe," they're all delivered with sinister subtlety - and are outnumbered by love songs. The talk (some from Petty himself) that this is a concept album, a song-cycle commentary – well, if that's its aim, it's also its failing. Whatever venomous thread holds it together is snipped clean about two-thirds in, after the bluesy prayer for "Lost Children," leaving the optimistic conclusion "Can't Stop the Sun" dangling.

That said, it is one of the group's great achievements, including more than a few instant classics, "Have Love Will Travel" topping the list. And what became most evident during this performance - abetted by a 40-piece orchestra, conducted by über- producer Jon Brion - is that the Heartbreakers have rarely been so mighty.

Whether breezing through symphonic Beatlesque passages, whipping up a little soft-shoe fun or doing what they do best - in this case, extending "When a Kid Goes Bad" and "Lost Children" into frazzled guitar workouts that spat hellfire - they remain a well-oiled machine capable of so much more than its patented spin on rock 'n' roll.

As if proving those credentials, they dusted off 1982's "Change of Heart" to kick off a thank-you encore - along with "I Need to Know," "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and "You Wreck Me" - and nailed it like it had never left their repertoire. In the end, that's all that matters: That they rock as strongly now as ever before, maybe more.

Debate Petty's current subject matter all you want. Five years from now, all anyone will remember is that "The Last DJ" contained some good tunes played superbly.

Tom Petty The Heartbroken
The indignant pop veteran pines for -- and delivers -- deeply felt rock at the Grand Olympic.

By Richard Cromelin, Times Staff Writer

With their indictments of mediocrity in general and the music biz in particular, the most in-your-face songs on Tom Petty's new album have suddenly turned the veteran rock musician into a sort of pop-culture vigilante, a longhaired Dirty Harry just begging a trembling record company weasel to make his day.

During his concert at the Grand Olympic Auditorium on Tuesday, Petty addressed this portrayal, which has been slapped on him since the release last week of "The Last DJ."

"I'm not only mad," Petty told the crowd in the auditorium, as well as the audience on a simultaneous radio broadcast and theater telecast. "There's a lot of hope left in this world, and this song is supposed to symbolize that."

That song, "Like a Diamond," blended star-point guitar notes with the sweep of the 40-piece orchestra on hand for the occasion, but its relative lack of eventfulness made a strong case that madder is better.

The album's title song and two of the three that follow it on the record are more gripping because of the indignation that fuels them. The other tune in that sequence, "Dreamville," is an affecting companion, a heart-tugging reverie on a childhood in which love of rock is woven with love of family and youthful wonder.

For the concert-cum-telecast, Petty took the unusual course of performing the entire new album in order. That opening segment set a stirring tone, with a crowded cast of archetypes (rather than characters) in the songs, including the title DJ (he talks too much and won't play what the boys upstairs want him to), the rock star whose music is drained of meaning by the business machinery, and the crass, greedy record executive.

Petty put on sunglasses to further caricature that evil businessman, but that was the only time his crusade seemed heavy-handed. The strokes may be broad, but Petty instills a real sense of betrayal into his narratives, making palpable the sense that something precious has indeed been lost.

This kind of broadside is usually lobbed from the streets, not from the belly of the beast, where Petty, an artist on the Warner Bros. label, resides. It's too bad that he doesn't really address the contradictions of dealing with this devil -- something that might add a welcome layer of complexity to the issue.

The album -- and therefore the show -- becomes less focused and occasionally more generic as it proceeds, but Petty and his Heartbreakers remain one of the class acts of the classic-rock generation, and Tuesday they moved from swirling folk-rock to arena-rock detonations with deceptive ease.

This is the grand, heartfelt, gimmick-free rock whose demise Petty mourns, so he had added incentive Tuesday to make it sound good, and in that he never failed.

Petty Talks About Tour
Petty tells LAUNCH that he plans to play a different show from what he presented this summer, prior to the release of The Last DJ. "I'm gonna change it around quite a bit. I'm gonna dust off a lot of songs I haven't played in years and just freshen it up for us, because I kinda know that show pretty well now, and as the record gets out there I'd like to add in more of this album."

Last DJ Enters Charts At #9
Andrew Dansby - Rolling Stone

Three weeks in stores and Elvis Presley's 30 #1 Hits remains the best-selling album in the country. The King's collection of repackaged classics sold 205,000 copies, according to SoundScan, to push it's sales past 1 million copies.

And E has had some formidable competition. Last week 30 #1 Hits held off the Rolling Stones' own collection, Forty Licks (which fell to Number Three with sales of 147,000 this week), and this week it topped Bon Jovi's Bounce, which still moved 160,000 copies to jump in at Number Two. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers latest, The Last DJ, was the only other Top Ten newcomer, selling 74,000 copies at Number Nine.

blah blah blah...

This week's Top Ten:

1. Elvis Presley's 30 #1 Hits
2. Jon Blomi's Bounce
3. The Rolling Stones' Forty Licks
4. Avril Lavigne's Let Go
5. Nelly's Nellyville
6. The Dixie Chicks' Home
7. Eminem's The Eminem Show
8. Xzibit's Man vs. Machine
9. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' The Last DJ
10. Soundtrack to American Idol.

Rocker Petty Releases Concept Album
By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) - Cue the first few cuts on the new Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album and you may wonder why they're still making music in the first place.

The songs from the perspective of a musician whose career started ``when money wasn't king'' ? scald the music business from several different directions.

Here are disc jockeys with hands tied by corporate owners, cynical executives getting rich off disposable pop stars, and a singer performing for wine-sipping poseurs while his real fans look on, disheartened, from the cheap seats.

Is this a career suicide note from an act only seven months removed from induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Keep listening.

The concept album, ``The Last DJ,'' is actually a broad indictment of American culture using the music business as a metaphor. It ends on a hopeful note, arguing that marketers and moneymen can't bottle what's in the heart.

``I really have dedicated my entire life to this music ? not that I didn't want to, or even have a choice,'' said the 51-year-old Petty. ``It overcame me at an early age in a big way. I care about it, and I don't want to see it reduced to a silly caricature.

``Maybe that's what inspired me to write this album,'' he said. ``I really care about this, and I don't want rock to become irrelevant.''

Petty is careful to deflate pretensions that often surround concept albums; he joked on the ``Today'' show this month that listeners could still ``dance around the house naked'' to the songs.

But he says he's never seen a more vapid time in pop music. He became immersed in the topic and liked the challenge of writing a story that wove characters throughout the disc.

Making it simply about the music business would be too easy.

``It's more about corporate America,'' he said. ``There's a lack of truth in entertainment and a fading morality among all of us, man to man and woman to woman. I think the point I tried to make with the album is that the music is the redeemer in the end.''

The key lyric for Petty is the last one: ``can't stop a man from dreaming.'' The song, ``Can't Stop the Sun,'' envisions like-minded musicians joining him.

Releasing the album's title cut as the first single was itself a challenge to the music industry: He's asking radio stations to play a song that says radio celebrates mediocrity and lacks the human touch.

Angry when they first heard it, programmers at New York's influential WAXQ radio tossed the song aside.

``My first reaction was, `What is this guy doing?''' said Eric Wellman, the station's music director. ``How can he expect us to put a song on the air that basically says we're (junk)?''

But Petty and his record company worked them. They explained the album's concept, and Petty recorded a spoken intro for ``The Last DJ'' specifically for WAXQ. The station's listeners were given passes to see a concert performance of the album in theaters on closed circuit television.

WAXQ eventually added ``The Last DJ'' to its playlist.

``It's probably the best thing he's done in a long time,'' Wellman said. ``For us not to put it out there when he is one of our core artists ? we had to find a way to do it. And with his help, we could.''

A handful of stations across the country passed on the record, but enough are playing it to make it a hit on the heritage rock charts, said Sean Ross, group editor for Airplay Monitor magazine.

Radio stations that won't play ``The Last DJ'' fascinate him, Petty said, because ``I've never heard a more pro-radio song in my life. I think that just illustrates my point. There are no naughty words in it. That just shows that they're afraid of an idea.''

Petty, who fought his record company's attempt to raise album prices two decades ago, tries to keep a lid on concert prices and not sell his songs for commercials. He called all the corporate sponsorship of musical acts dangerous.

``I kind of see this as something the five of us, the Heartbreakers, we started it, and we want to be in control of it,'' he said.

Nearly 30 years into their existence, their leader believes the Heartbreakers are more powerful than ever.

``I never counted on that,'' Petty said. ``I didn't think that in our 50s we'd be getting better. The way they played on this record was stunning.''

The Heartbreakers recently welcomed back an old member, bass player Ron Blair, who had left the music business in 1982. He replaces the man who had replaced him, Howie Epstein, fired because personal problems interfered with his performances.

Blair reunited with the Heartbreakers for their Hall of Fame induction in March.

That night was clearly special for Petty, who beamed from the Waldorf Astoria stage at his family dancing in the audience to ``American Girl.''

``You can be cynical on the one hand about rock 'n' roll having a Hall of Fame,'' Petty said. ``But if they do have it, and they do, I just thought it felt nice. It's nice to be recognized and have a pat on the back after all these years.''

Damn the depression, Tom Petty spins happier tune
By Dean Goodman

MALIBU, Calif.(Reuters) - Tom Petty and his new wife cannot keep their hands off each other. (If I was married to Dana, we'd never leave the house!)

As the Malibu surf sets the mood nearby, the 51-year-old rocker has shed his world-weary demeanor to exchange loving looks with his favorite American Girl, Dana York, whom he married last year.

An onlooker is tempted to tell them to get a motel room, but then remembers this is a motel room. Petty has checked in for the afternoon to chat about his new record, "The Last DJ," the 12th release with his band the Heartbreakers, which hit U.S. stores Oct. 8.

It's amazing what a little love and a lot of therapy can do for a man. When Petty recorded his previous album, 1999's "Echo," he was dealing with divorce, clinical depression and a tight deadline. He rushed out a dark collection of songs he has never listened to. Sales were relatively disappointing. Some musicians produce their best work during a crisis. Not Petty.

"I think I work best when I'm happy, when I feel good -- even if you're writing a sad song," the singer-guitarist said, after tearing himself away from York to do the interview. "When you're sad or when you're really depressed you don't want to pick up the guitar and write."

Petty has been in therapy for six years, battling his "horrible disease." He says is doing a lot better, and no longer takes medication.

"It's a funny disease because it takes you a long time to really come to terms with the fact that you're sick -- medically sick, you're not just suddenly going out of your mind."

Tom Petty on music's 'angel whores' and greedy executives
BY TOM MOON
Philadelphia Inquirer

Is America willing to spend its hard-earned cash to hear a rock star rail about how craven pop culture has become? Tom Petty is about to find out.

On his acidic concept album, "The Last DJ," which arrives Tuesday, the famously laid-back Florida-born rocker bemoans an entertainment industry that markets soft-porn "angel whores" and executives whose mantra is "You get to be famous, I get to be rich."

By JIM FARBER
New York Daily News (This article was found on gainesvillesun.com)

Gainesville's own Tom Petty gets to play pop critic on his new album - and he's not giving out many good reviews.

On ''The Last DJ,'' Petty paints a world of increasingly cynical radio stations, exploitative record companies, greedy managers and shallow musicians, a world where the sort of real artists and earnest fans he knew in his youth are marginalized.

''I feel so sorry for the younger generation being turned on to music right now,'' Petty says. ''I wonder if they're being offered anything that's that good. Or if they even know how good things can be.''

Hmmmm . . . is this just a classic case of a generation complaining about the one that replaces it? ''Well,'' the 48-year-old Petty allows, ''it may sound like I'm just some old guy bitching about how much better things were in my day. But the truth is, they were.''

And he doesn't mean just in music. Petty says he used the milieu he knows best as a metaphor for the deepening greed he sees in America.

In the self-explanatory new track ''Money Becomes King' and in the title song - in which the individual voice is muffled, the better to amplify a soulless corporate message - Petty echoes the howling chorus of condemnation that surrounds companies like Enron and Tyco. As such, his album could not be more pertinent.

''As I was writing these songs, I kept thinking, 'I better get this out while it's still relevant,' '' Petty says. ''But it seems like it just keeps becoming more relevant.''

Writing songs about the greed of the music business is hardly new. More than 30 years ago, the Kinks and the Who did concept albums on the subject ("Lola vs. the Powerman'' and ''The Who Sell Out,'' respectively). Petty himself took on the shallowness of pop culture in earlier songs like ''Jammin' Me.'' Twenty years ago, he even faced down his record company by refusing to allow an album of his to be sold at a new, higher list price.

Now Petty is more irate than ever. ''It seems like our whole American culture, if that's not an oxymoron, has become almost dangerous,'' he says. ''TV in particular. I've quit watching it. And the term 'virtual reality' . . . people are already living their lives virtually, which ain't good.

''And I'm very concerned about these fashion ads that dress up really young girls to look sexy,'' he adds. ''It's amazing to me that nobody has the personal conviction to say that this just might have something to do with the proliferation of child molestation. And even if there's a chance it might, we shouldn't do it.''

Views like these threaten to put Petty in the camp of such conservatives as Lynne Cheney. But, it should be noted, ''The Last DJ'' doesn't consist entirely of self-righteous rants against obvious targets. There's leavening humor on the album, too, like the portraits of a slimy record-company chief in ''Joe'' and the sleazy Don Juan in ''The Man Who Loved Women.''

The latter song sounds as if it could describe any musician on the road. But, asked if the song might have ever described himself, the recently remarried father of two daughters says, laughing: ''Well, I hope not.''

In fact, Petty's new album lacks any autobiographical songs about relationships. This may be because his previous work, 1999's ''Echo,'' was his most personal ever: It chronicled his divorce from Jane Petty after more than two decades of marriage.

As for his own dealings with the music business, Petty stresses that things have worked out well. He knows the business has rewarded him handsomely, as it has his band, the Heartbreakers (who back him once again on the new work). ''I was writing more from the point of view of a character,'' he explains.

Yet Petty has made sure to put the lyrics' point of view into action. He has always refused to license his music to advertisers. ''Maybe I'm stupid, because it seems like nobody cares (if you do it) anymore. But I care.''

He also won't allow ''golden circle'' seating, at sky-high prices, at his shows. ''I haven't seen a rock show that's worth 200 bucks,'' he says. ''It's gotten out of hand. (As for CDs,) maybe if the industry made them more affordable, they would help solve this problem of people stealing music with computers.

''If I could boil the whole album down to one major problem,'' he adds, ''it's this notion that we need to make all the money that is possible, of grabbing every cent. This attitude permeates every phase of life now. It's just so unhealthy.''

For all the album's jaundiced views, Petty made sure to close it on a sweet and hopeful note. In ''Can't Stop the Sun,'' an artist triumphs over the business by the sheer force of his passion - and through the audience's pent-up hunger to share it.

To create that sort of passion, Petty says, he'll continue to balance the kind of love songs that have dominated his other albums with ones like his latest, which tweak and critique the world we live in. Such a mix, says Petty, keeps him eager to continue writing 28 years into his career.

''Thank God,'' he says, ''there will always be something to complain about.''

FYI: THE LAST DJ

What: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' new CD, on which Petty takes a swipe at record companies, radio stations and bands that sacrifice their craft for success.

When: The CD arrived Tuesday in stores.

Nudist Group Wants Tom Petty
- From Star Magazine - A nudist group is offering an open invitation to musician Tom Petty to play at their board of trustees meeting, to be held on November 19-23.

According to reports, Petty has been promoting his new album, "The Last DJ," on talk shows, telling hosts that the record "is perfect for dancing naked around the house."

Erich Shuttauf, a member of the American Association for Nude Recreation, says he's delighted by Petty's description of his album and has invited the performer to play at any of the organization's events that he wishes, if he can't make the board meeting.

Shuttauf also has a more personal reason -- he says he's been "dancing naked to Petty in his own bedroom since high school."

Tom Petty's "The Last DJ" is in stores now.

Tom Petty is mad as hell and he is not going to take it anymore.
- He calls his new album, "The Last DJ," a "loose concept album" where Petty blasts corporate greed in the Clear Channel era of the music business on sharp, pointed songs like "Dreamville," "Money Becomes King" or the title track with the ringing chorus "there g oes the last DJ who plays what he wants to play and who says what he wants to say."

"I'm fed up with the world," Petty said. "I'm not really attacking the music business. That would be like shooting fish in a barrel. It would be too easy a target. I use them more as a metaphor for what's going on everywhere, in all the businesses, in all our lives. There's just this missing element of truth. Perhaps there's a little bit of a moral dilemma. That might be more of what I'm trying to say in general. We've hit a point where I'm not sure we care about each other. I miss that."

Petty, 51, has never been much of a firebrand in his quarter-century of making rock 'n' roll records. But as corporate consolidation in both the concert business and the radio industry reaches an all-time high and the quality of contemporary music descends to an all-time low, Petty is moved to address the issues.

"We're in a day and age where pop singers are created on game shows on television," he said. "Damn, if I don't speak up about that then I am remiss. If I am going to be chastised for doing it, then so be it. But there's nothing I've said in this record that isn't 100 percent true. I'm not making any claims that aren't true. And if you're thinking I'm talking about you, then that says more than I could ever say."

The title track, a Heartbreakers instant classic, was the most added track on radio its first week out, but the song is certain to stir controversy in the tepid and tame landscape of today's corporate radio world. Some stations have already refused to play the track.

"I'm a huge fan of radio," he said. "I don't like what I hear in pop music these days. I'm not just talking about rock radio. I'm talking about all the radio. That song, when I heard it was banned, I thought, this is a fictional song. It's not 'Citizen Kane.' It's not based on anyone. It's a fictional song about a guy who is fired because he doesn't want to play the songs he's told to play. Where he used to have a choice to be a tastemaker himself, he's even told not to talk too much on the radio. He goes to Mexico and starts something there, where he has the freedom to do it. If they're afraid of that story, what's wrong? What are they afraid of?"

"I used to feel like I knew DJs on the radio," he continued, "that they were personalities. That even when I hated them, I knew them and I felt comfortable hearing them talk. Some of them I felt were even people of taste who actually chose the records, who went through what was there and thought this was the best. Of course, there's always been playlists, but there was a lot more freedom. It's becoming a corporate thing, where they call up people and play them 10 seconds of a song over the phone and if they know it, it goes on the air. But that's not the way for the music to grow. People can only choose from what they're offered and if all they're offered is boy bands, that's what they have to choose from."

Petty, who took a defiant stand more than 20 years ago against raising the list price of albums to $8.98, worries about the cost of records and concert tickets and what effect gouging the consumers will have on the future of the music.

"I could make a lot more money if I'd just charge more," he said. "But I've never seen a rock show worth $200. I think that we've got to be careful that it doesn't become the music of the elite. We don't want to price this out of the reach of the ordinary person. I think that goes for CDs, as well. The record companies are having this problem with people stealing music off the computers because music costs too much.

"I think $18, $20 for a CD is more than the average person's got to lay out.

I know they discount them in the stores more and more. I think it's a great thing if they can bring the price down. "

On his band's summer tour, Petty made a point of telling audiences there was no corporate sponsor behind his tour ("We're brought to you by you," he told the crowds). Only once in his career did Petty succumb to the sirens of sponsorship, when he let Tecate beer put its name on his tickets more than 20 years ago.

"I found it very distasteful," said Petty, who returns Oct. 30 to Shoreline Amphitheatre. "I immediately felt like we'd done a wrong thing. I've veered away from it since. I see it creeping into everything. They had a big punk concert here over the weekend with the Sex Pistols and all these groups. It was sponsored by Levi's, which I found really ironic. I think we should steer away from that as artists. I think it's probably a bad move. I think the more songs that go in these commercials on TV is just hurting rock in general. I think it saps its credibility."

Petty also worries about selling front row seats at inflated rates. During the sessions, he toyed with calling the new album "The Golden Circle," after these special seating sections.

"That was a working title I had at one point," he said. "I found the music business to be a great metaphor for what's going on today. If you noticed, I attacked the artists as well and the audience. Nobody gets out unscathed. I think this notion of everyone wanting to have a little bit of an elite edge on everyone -- like, 'I'm going to the concert, but I'm going to sit in a better section than you and I'm going to have a waiter.' Then corporations buy the tickets and give them away as business perks. You wind up with people in that golden circle who don't really give a damn what's going on anyway. We've never done a golden circle."

"But I don't feel it's just in the music industry. It's all around us everywhere and I'm concerned. I was naive enough to think that the Sept. 11 thing might actually change the entertainment business. But it didn't. It didn't change it an iota. That worries me. I think we've taken not caring as far as we can. It's time to care passionately. I'm just really amazed that anyone could be offended by anything I've written unless they are really the enemy."

It IS Good to be King of Atlanta!
By Barbara Fara
Music InCider Magazine

On August 9th 2002, Music InCider Magazine had the honor to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the HiFi Buys Amphitheatre in Atlanta GA, with his opening act Jackson Browne, who the joined on the second leg of their tour. It was a cool night and the stars were bright when the concert started. Jackson Browne put on a wonderful performance. The energy was there physically and psychically, even though the fans were waiting for their king Mr. Petty. I must admit Jackson Browne, with his boyish grin, played one hell of a set. He played his older standards, such as “Doctor My Eyes,” and “Pretender.” Jackson Browne did do an encore set. It did not go well with the fans. For us at the Music InCider Magazine, he did a beautiful job. We can certainly understand why Mr. Petty chose Jackson Browne to open for him.

As the lights went down, and the evening got cooler, the stars got brighter. The heavens opened on a boy from Gainesville. On October 20th of this year, this boy is going to be 52. This boy, of course, is the great Tom Petty. Tom that still looked liked a 20-year-old kid, with his red velvet jacket, lavender satin shirt, and his black velvet pants. His best friend was on his arm. That friend is his Gibson SG. That night, under the open heavens, he looked as though he was born with it on that arm. Elvis, his main influence, would have been proud.

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers do not look at us as fans, but as family. I love that about them. Hey, baby. We love Florida, and all that sweet Southern Rock under a hot Georgia night. To quote Mr. Petty, “The Heartbreakers were not brought to you by Coca-Cola. I don’t want to sell you no credit card, and I don’t want you to fall into the Gap.” This made the crowd go nuts. Tom is his own man, and we love him for that. We all know how Tom feels about the corporate machine. He fought for creative control of his music, and helped out other musicians with the same problem. He thanked us for coming-and we knew what it was to be real. They played a huge opening set. As the night went The Heartbreakers would play their other great hits such as “Free Falling”, “Learning to Fly”, “ American Girl,” “Mary Jane’s Last Dance," "Even The Losers," and “Here Comes My Girl”. They also played “It’s Good to be King”, and “I Need to Know.” Each song kept the crowd howling for more. The Heartbreakers kept going, feeding off the desire of the crowd. “Running Down a Dream”, “Here Comes My Girl”, “ Yer So Bad”, “You Don't Know How It Feels”, spoke to the lives and the energy of everyone present. The more The Heartbreakers played the more the energy at the HiFi Buys Amphitheatre came together into an energy ring. It was like he knew what each fan/family member wanted to hear played, and his voice did not crack, and his energy was the energy that everyone present had. He was so in tune with the crowd, and the Heartbreakers that they came across as a bunch of twenty-year-old kids. A fan does not attend a Tom Petty concert. A fan becomes a part of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert.

The Heartbreakers know if it were not for the fans, there would be no Heartbreakers. They are grateful to us, their extended family. During the show Tom announced the release of the new album, “The Last DJ” that is coming out this October 8th of this year. The band played three songs from the new album, which included “Can't Stop The Sun”, “Lost Children,” and “Have Love Will Travel.” The fans went even crazier knowing that their King was releasing another album. “The Last DJ” definitely speaks about The Heartbreakers feelings regarding the corporate machine. We are certainly glad that they do not want to sell us a Coors Light! We agree Tom, substance is everything.

The Concert ended with “You Wreck Me,” but do you actually believe they would not let him go without an encore? Of course not! When they got back on stage, Tom introduced each one of his band members. Mike Campbell, one of rock's finest guitarists, Benmont Tench, a piano player's piano player, Scott Thurston, Steve Ferrone, and Ron Blair, the band's original bass player. Tom and the Heartbreakers encore songs covered the classic hits “Free Fallin'”, “Gloria”, and "American Girl." We strongly suggest not missing it at all. It is one of the best concerts of the year. The band evokes a feeling of bringing the concert goers into the studio, or into a backyard barbecue where your friends Tom, Mike, Benmont, Scott, Steve, and Ron have a couple of songs they want to play for you. This is one band that loves what they do.

Tom Petty is the son of an insurance salesman from Gainesville Florida who knows what it is like to be a regular guy. He loves his fans, and he looks at us as family. He doesn’t try to sell us a pre-packaged corporate image. He lets us know what is on his mind through his music, and he lets us know what he thinks of the music industry. Whether it is a solo album, or with the Heartbreaker’s.

I have noticed lately that he is getting a lot of shit about “The Last DJ,” because he sees what is happening with the radio stations. The man gets hell again for speaking up and standing by what he feels. We believe if we did not have musicians like Petty, our music world would consist of a lot of bullshit, and the next thing you would be hearing the Teletubbies greatest hits. So if you have a chance see the show, see it. If you want a different point of view, get the CD. Maybe then you will see what Petty is trying to get out to the world. He wants to wake us up again by giving us all a good swift kick in the ass.

For more information on the Heartbreakers, Go to one place, www.gonegator.com.

Music Incider is a wholly owned and copyrighted subsidiary of BAF Productions, Inc.

Tom Petty's peeved - and on a new CD, he won't back down
- The rock icon takes a stand against the music business on the gutsy 'The Last DJ'

By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 10/6/2002

Dear corporate America: Tom Petty doesn't like you.

For years, Petty has been a rock rebel who has fought for his rights and lashed out at the big-business concerns that are turning artists into mere numbers on an accountant's ledger sheet. And he sharpens his focus even more on his new album, ''The Last DJ,'' in which he and his band, the Heartbreakers, attack corporate radio stations and record labels as well as greedy rock stars who cave in to sponsorships, high ticket prices, and ''golden circle'' seating.

''The culture is getting meaner and meaner,'' Petty says. ''If you go to artists or record-business people, no one thinks that it's them causing the problems. But it's all of us, in a way. The album is a statement about the declining moral values in society, and that we don't really care enough about each other any more.''

Only an artist of Petty's stature could dare make a record like ''The Last DJ.'' When Petty speaks, people listen. That will happen when you've survived 25 years in a fickle industry and have just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

''The artists who have been around have got to take responsibility for the power we have,'' says Petty. And ''The Last DJ,'' which comes out on Tuesday, has already sent shivers through some corporate boardrooms. The title track is a wake-up call: a fiery rock tune that defends freedom of choice for DJs, rather than their having to play songs chosen by anonymous consultants. ''You can't turn him into a company man/You can't turn him into a whore/And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore,'' Petty sings.

It's really a ''pro-radio song,'' Petty says. And even though some radio programmers have been shocked by it, the song was the most-added single at Triple A (adult album alternative) radio stations and rock stations when it was released recently.

''When we first heard it, we said, `Whoa, it's angry,''' recalls Michele Williams, music director at Boston's WBOS (92.9 FM). ''But it's a Tom Petty song with a great tempo, and it tells a story. And when you hear it on the radio, it works.

''Tom Petty is an icon of rock radio. When he puts out a new record, people are going to take notice of it. But I don't know if it's a wake-up call for radio. I think it will reaffirm in some people's minds what is already there. This is not a new feeling in radio, ever since radio went through so much consolidation. But I don't think it will change things. Also, I think it's a commentary on business in general, not just the radio business.''

Petty says that he uses radio stations and major record labels as a metaphor on the CD for the ''corporate nightmares'' affecting many industries. But it's hard to avoid the specificity of the lyrics of another track, ''Joe,'' about a cynical record-label chief executive seeking new teen singers to exploit: ''Go get me a kid with a good-looking face/Bring me a kid who can remember his place. ... Or bring me a girl/They're always the best/You put 'em on stage and you have 'em undress.''

Then there's ''Money Becomes King,'' a gutsy track about a singer named Johnny who doubles the price of his concert tickets, sells out to a beer sponsor, and plays to upscale fans who ''sat in golden circles and waiters served them wine/And talked through all the music and paid John little mind/

And way up in the nosebleeds/We watched him on the screen/They'd hung between the billboards so cheaper seats could see.''

''Rich people aren't fun to play to,'' says Petty. ''You want people there who make average incomes, because they might appreciate it more. And a rock show is still just a rock show. I've never seen one that is worth $100.''

Petty, who keeps his ticket prices well below that, says, ''Everyone seems so concerned with making as much money as could possibly be made. It used to be OK to turn a healthy profit, but you didn't have to take every damned dime you could get. ... It's completely accountant-driven now.''

Petty's new album is the most radical protest disk of the year from a mainstream rock star. So if you work for Petty's label - the very corporate Warner Bros. - what do you think of a record like this?

''Tom is talented enough and blessed enough that he's always been able to stick to his guns. He practices what he preaches,'' says Warner executive vice-president Diarmuid Quinn from the label's headquarters in Burbank, Calif. ''And nobody here in this building has said, `Forget Tom Petty' because he's talking about us. They understand where he's going, and Tom has also come in here and perfectly articulated his position to everybody.

''We also understand that he's making a bigger statement about the world, not just the music business. I would call the album more of a reinforcement of a sentiment that a lot of people are feeling. The reality is that we all work for corporations, and we all have to deal with quarterly profits and stock prices. It's not like the '70s or '80s, when it was more about just the music. The world is different today.''

It's a challenge to promote the record, Quinn acknowledges, but he says Petty is doing everything possible to get his messages out there. For instance, Petty will be on David Letterman's show tomorrow, then Conan O'Brien's show on Wednesday. And Petty will play the entire album Oct. 15 in a concert at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, which will be broadcast nationally over many rock stations.

Petty worked two years on the music, and it rivals his best work, including his ''Damn the Torpedoes'' and ''Wildflowers'' albums. He and the Heartbreakers offer a thoughtful amalgam of pop and psychedelia, with influences from Pink Floyd (''Like a Diamond'') to the Rolling Stones (''When a Kid Goes Bad''), Gram Parsons (''Blue Sunday''), and Bob Dylan (''Have Love Will Travel,'' which has a ''Basement Tapes'' feel).

And not every song is about the music industry. There are touching love songs, plus a tune about the homeless (''Lost Children'') and an incorrigible Lothario (''The Man Who Loves Women''). But many songs are threaded together, and the DJ from the first track reappears later on. The album ends on a stirring note with ''Can't Stop the Sun,'' proof that Petty wanted to take his shots, but also offer hope. As he sings in conclusion:

Hey, mister business man...

You may think it's all overBut 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.

From Entertainment Weekly - -- If there's anything music buffs love to do -- even more than burn CDs of illegal downloads -- it's bitch about radio. And now a mainstream rocker has written an anthem to give voice to their carping, reupping his ante as a populist hero in the process.

''The Last DJ'' isn't the best single Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers have ever put out: The hook is too easy and sing-songey, the lyrics too blunt and polemical, to go down in any hall of classics. Yet this song and several like it on Petty's upcoming album have the galvanizing effect of suddenly articulating what just about everybody feels, which in this case is that rock & roll is on a slow side to complete irrelevance. Leading it there is a lockstop army of powerless disc jockeys and bottom-dollar-minded radio programmers.

Well, okay, maybe there are a few other culprits responsible for the musical mess we're in today. Namely, the label executives who sign so much bunk; the careerist musicians who make it; the FCC, which in the '90s deregulated radio to the point where a few corporations own most major-market stations; the radio listeners who don't hang up when radio's hired marketing guns ring up to do ''call-out'' research and play 10 seconds of a song to find out if it's a hit. Complicit, all. But I don't have any compunctions about essentially blaming the mercenary folks who run radio today. They're an easier target than Saddam Hussein, and possibly more deserving.

Petty's peeves
In case you haven't heard Petty's peeves -- and some stations that would normally play a new tune of his aren't, possibly for political reasons -- ''Last DJ'' is a fantasy about one lone soldier who refuses to give in to the system (''There goes the last DJ who plays what he wants to play...''). Our maverick jock even moves to Mexico rather than submit to playlists prepared at national headquarters.

There are passing nods to the phenomenon of ''voice tracking'' -- wherein chains hire one DJ for multiple cities, creating the illusion that he's local when he's being piped in from out of state -- and even to satellite radio, which has been heralded as the possible salvation of the medium (''As we celebrate mediocrity/All the boys upstairs wanna see/How much you'll pay for what you used to get for free'').

Petty doesn't take any shots at independent promotion, unfortunately. I guess you can only include so many damning verses in a song that, after all, Petty does want to get on the radio. But I can't think of any greater single factor in the downfall of the medium. Just when you think there might be a popular revolt against this ludicrous mechanism for deciding what gets on the air, it gets more ridiculous.

Labyrinthine logic
In a development that can only be described as farcical in its labyrinthine logic, Clear Channel (the nation's foremost owner of radio stations) announced that it would be dealing exclusively with a pre-selected set of indie promoters, who will pay the corporation for the rights to their internal research while being paid by the labels. If you're wondering how that differs from payola -- or indeed, why Clear Channel and other radio operators can't just hire programmers who are smart enough to pick hit singles on their own, sans all this shady promotional influence -- well, you won't find an answer here.

Is there any hope for better radio? I think we've long since passed the tipping point for the salvation of ''local'' commercial FM. But unlike Petty, I don't think it's such a terrible thing that we have to pay for what we used to get for free -- which is to say, free-form radio where a DJ might even pick his own tuneage -- via newfangled satellite radio services like XM and Sirius.

We're used to paying for ''The Sopranos'' every month, and I think music fans will ultimately have to get used to ponying up for the chance to hear something other than Nelly, Creed, or classic rock. I don't even mind that Clear Channel, which is helping to destroy the taste buds of millions of impressionable young Americans as we speak, has a stake in the wonderful XM, which I subscribe to. Big corporations CAN use their superpowers for good as well as evil.

XM, a saving grace
I just drove cross-country listening to dozens of different niche formats, happy in the knowledge that no independent promoter or market researcher had a hand in, say, Hank Snow getting played on the vintage country station I tuned in. I'm grateful for the new technology that allows that degree of narrowcasting to exist on a national level where it can't, usually, on a local.

But there's a loss worth mourning here, nonetheless, and I'm glad Petty is helping eulogize it. In the 1970s, I grew up in a city, Cleveland, where seemingly the entire populace had their radios turned on every Friday night to WMMS, which many radio observers -- yes, even non-Clevelanders -- consider the greatest rock station in history. You may have had similar communal radio experiences in your own youth.

Now, listening to satellite radio, knowing that I'm probably the only person in the nearest four zip codes tuned in to a particular channel -- and that I have no chance of pulling up to a stop light and seeing a beautiful blond in a Corvette singing along with the same tune as me -- I feel kind of lonely. About as lonely as Tom Petty's fictional DJ, in fact. But I'll take a little loneliness over the new Justin Timberlake tune.

Tom Petty Tees Off - With The Last DJ, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty rails against mediocrity.

By David Peisner
CDNOW Contributing Writer