Tom Petty Albums Poll

we haven't done something like this for Tom Petty. can't believe we recently lost him, still so sad.

holy shit, I had a Tom Petty song playing in my head (Here Comes My Girl) just before you started this. and I never have Tom Petty in my head

bizarre, not sure why he popped into my head. i thought the Beck albums poll went really well and was thinking about doing it for another solo artist. well most is with the Heartbreakers but still they use his name first.

Voted for Mojo because that was the tour I saw him on for the one and only time, so it's my favorite even if I listen to others more often. (Honestly, I listen to the 4CD Live Anthology more often than any of his studio albums.)

surprising myself here but she's the one

Live Anthology is the tops.

My fav studio record is Wildflowers

^^^ i might vote for that

I might too.

Hard Promises, Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), Into the Great Wide Open are grand runners-up.

I've always liked Long After Dark best.

Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers have the best songs, Damn The Torpedoes and Hard Promises have the best performances

i have to listen to a few of these before actually voting, i don't know all of these. hoping to figure out which ones as people reply in this thread.

I knee jerk voted for Torpedoes before I realized it was Heartbreakers and solo work combined. When the results post, add 1 to Full Moon Fever and subtract 1 from Torpedoes for an accurate count.

wound up voting FMF instead of Wildflowers, god help me.

still love Damn The Torpedoes

I've always liked Long After Dark best.

Yup. It tails off a bit at the end, but a great collection of songs. Torpedoes is probably the most wall-to-wall-bangers album, but LAD has a lot of atmosphere.

Long After Dark is a record I overlooked for years and I'm currently loving, but its Wildflowers by a mile.

Wildflowers

Wildflowers for sure.

I wonder if the picks for this poll will correlate with the person's age. Anyone under 40 picking Torpedoes? I read the ILMers over 50 thread...

One thing i have learned is that Wildflowers is that popular, had no idea.

I like virtually any Petty song when I hear it on the radio, but I only own one album: the debut. This definitely correlates with my age, in that I got it when it was released. xp

i was theorizing on a related matter on another thread when people were talking about how Mary Jane's Last Dance was his most popular song on streaming. i think Greatest Hits was a massive breakthrough for Petty w/'90s kids, and MJLD and its video were massive and iconic for that demographic. And then a year later he releases Wildflowers, which is a genuine peak level album for him, and one that really hit home with the same demo as Greatest Hits (especially because of You Don't Know How It Feels & You Wreck Me.)

100% otm

For me, anyway. V accurate.

yep

any album during peak CD era with his name was gonna be huge in 1994-1995 but it happened to be Wildflowers, which was career-best for him.

same here -- i mean i was born in '74 and my first exposure to Tom Petty was via hearing some songs from Full Moon Fever and maybe seeing him on SNL, but as classic as that period was those songs felt a bit more "adult" (not contemporary, but just not for the kids.) I think when you consider the late '80s music scene and what teenagers were listening to, you can see how Petty wouldn't fit in. But he really easily fit in alongside the bands who were breaking through in the grunge era, not just with the music but with his entire image and persona.

omar v otm in my case. I'd dismissed Petty as a radio staple I didn't really need, but Greatest Hits came out when I was 17 and turned me around.

When Wildflowers came out, it was one of the very few albums that was universally liked (well, at least tolerated without vocal opposition) by all of us in my sophoomore year architecture studio, so it was the very frequent soundtrack to our all night sessions.

i played Damn the Torpedoes today, what a fantastic album!

I was born in 1974 too and "Don't Come Around Here No More" is my first memory of Petty. I loved that song, but I never bought Southern Accents until way later. Wilburys -> Full Moon is when I became a more than casual fan.

I wonder if the picks for this poll will correlate with the person's age. Anyone under 40 picking Torpedoes? I read the ILMers over 50 thread...

Definite correlation. I was born in 1965 and knew of "American Girl" on the radio, but it was the New Wave Tom era of the early 80s that I connected with. I'll probably vote for Hard Promises but could just as easily go Long After Dark. I never paid much attention after Jeff Lynne showed up - had no idea Wildflowers was so huge.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I had to go with Wildflowers after all

Hard Promises

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

For the record, I voted for Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) cuz someone had to

Damn no votes for the debut, even tho it has breakdown on it

This poll DEFINITELY needed to be more than a week long.

the olds ftw