![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Tom-Petty-Singer-Guitarist-1980s-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ The Bigger Picture)<\/p>\n
Sat 31 January 2026 1:30, UK <\/p>\n
There was never a day that went by that Tom Petty<\/a> wasn\u2019t proud to play rock and roll.\u00a0<\/p>\n He might not have been the hardest rocker the world had ever seen, but his way of playing off the Heartbreakers resulted in some of the purest songs that the rock canon has ever produced. But even for a track record as consistent as his, Petty knew that some songs were bound to get grating after playing them one too many times.<\/p>\n That being said, there aren\u2019t too many songs in Petty\u2019s discography that are outright bad. There are some duds here and there and tunes that don\u2019t work, but he doesn\u2019t have that one album that everyone points and laughs at as the nadir of his catalogue. He was much more interested in making every tune count, and even on records that aren\u2019t as great, like Echo or even Let Me Up (I\u2019ve Had Enough), there are usually one or two songs that stand out as a notch above anything else that he was doing back then.<\/p>\n And the important thing was that Petty never stopped growing, either. Not many people can say that one of their best albums came well after their time in the sun, but even if Wildflowers is one of the finest records in Petty\u2019s catalogue, he didn\u2019t want to stop there. The Last DJ<\/a> and Highway Companion had some fantastic tunes, and even when reforming his childhood band Mudcrutch, he was still aiming to make the best tunes he could when working on \u2018I Forgive It All\u2019 and \u2018Crystal River\u2019.<\/p>\n Then again, when you\u2019ve been playing music for that long, there are bound to be a few tunes that are a little bit naive compared to everything else. Petty famously hated \u2018Make It Better\u2019 before the record was even out that long, and while a song like \u2018How Many More Days\u2019 was beloved by some members of his crew, he all but guaranteed that he would never play it live as long as he lived.\u00a0<\/p>\n It takes a lot for a song like \u2018American Girl\u2019 to enter rock and roll history, but even for a song that epitomises heartland rock, Petty wasn\u2019t so sure about \u2018Breakdown\u2019 from the same record. It had a moody guitar line and one of the best performances that Mike Campbell ever gave, but even with a great backing track leading the charge, Petty felt that it wasn\u2019t worth digging the song up when playing some of his greatest hits tours.<\/p>\n