Recent Additions : Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers : HypnoticEye

I have enjoyed most of Tom Petty's music since picking up his debut and self titled LP on sale in Brighton Mall in 1979.  Hard to believe that was 35 years ago.


I have managed to see him twice live, first on the Damn The Torpedoes tour at the Majestic Tour in Wellington in 1980.  That was a band at the top of their game.  Later in the 80's I saw him again when he returned to Wellington and played a rather shambolic set with Bob Dylan at Athletic Park.

Since then he has been one of those artists who, apart from the odd misstep has consistently produced quality and challenging material. Any review of his career reveals an impressive catalog of work.


Each of the last few albums has been greeted by critics as "a return to form" or "best since" in their reviews.  In the same reviews the critics tend to also dismiss those last few albums that they had recently praised.  A common trend in rock writing.  My favourite of his recent albums is Highway Companion (a solo album of sorts)

I have most of them  and they are generally solid albums with one or two excellent tracks.

So it has been with the release of his latest album, Hypnotic Eye, generally glowing reviews, that dismiss his more recent work that was being praised last time round.  Rather than shell out the $50+ for the vinyl version I picked up a CD on one of my last visits to NZ - something to listen to in the car.  Chris was with me and to say the album did not capture our attention would be an understatement.  Chris was unfamiliar with Petty and I had to quickly assure him that Petty was better than that and we put on a selection of his other music off the iPod.

So I assigned Hypnotic Eye to the library..................  and then.............

A few tracks started to crop up on the iPod on shuffle and they started to grow on me.  On my recent trip to New Zealand I decided to give the album another go and listened to it on the flight over. Songs like American Dream Plan B, Fault Lines, Forgotten Man and U Get Me High are all worthy additions to the Petty canon.

It  will not be remembered as one of his great albums but if you keep listening it grows and I know I will come back to it - which I wont with Mojo.