Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Long After Dark

THE REVIEW

Currently, Tom Petty is the best American songwriter. In the '70s and '80s (at least until '85), there was Bruce Springsteen stealing the spotlight from him, but after the Boss's decline, Tom had a clear path to success, achieved especially with the excellent "Full Moon Fever" of 1989 (made without the Heartbreakers).

This obviously doesn't mean that Petty's previous albums are bad: the 1976 debut already showed impressive maturity, especially with one of the most beautiful Pop Rock songs ever ("American Girl"), then there was the misstep (for me, even more than a misstep) with the 1978 LP "You're Gonna Get It!," which showed more energy but decidedly less inspiration than the debut. In 1979, Tom Petty made his masterpiece "Damn The Torpedoes," which contains at least 5 of his best songs, then another inferior work in the career of the Florida songwriter with "Hard Promises," which has only one quality song ("The Waiting") and too many fillers.

After this introduction, we can talk about "Long After Dark": musically, the album is very similar to "Damn The Torpedoes," not that "Hard Promises" was a sound revolution, but surely the Heartbreakers' sound was more "sluggish" and "softened." In this new work, however, there's all the energy of Petty's first three albums. It starts with the excellent "One Story Town", continues with the single "You Got Lucky", which is a good song, but Tom has released better singles than this, then "Deliver Me" and the splendid "Change Of Hearts". There are also some fillers in this album ("Finding Out", for example) but compared to "Hard Promises," this is a definitely more inspired work.

Tom Petty will do better in the future (the already mentioned "Full Moon Fever"), but this LP is definitely a good part of the excellent career of the songwriter, who currently has no rivals in the USA.

The real rating is a 3.5.