“It always plays with people’s heads if you do something they don’t expect.” That’s what Tom Petty instructed Creem in 1983. The famed bandleader had simply adopted his most reflective album to date – 1981’s Exhausting Guarantees – with probably the most unreserved rockfest of his profession: Lengthy After Darkish. As Petty defined to Hit Parader, “I wanted a pretty aggressive feel on Long After Dark. I’m glad we did the softer things we did on Hard Promises, but that’s out of my system now.”
However whereas Petty and the Heartbreakers have been embracing their uncooked, rocking roots, their fifth album discovered them coping with the first-ever break of their familial bond. Ron Blair had been the Heartbreakers’ unflappable bass man from the start, however he’d grown weary of the grind of street life, and after Exhausting Guarantees, he bid his buddies goodbye.
Fortunately, destiny had already put Petty within the path of the subsequent Heartbreaker. He’d not too long ago produced Del Shannon’s comeback album, Drop Down and Get Me, encountering Shannon’s killer bassist Howie Epstein within the course of. Deciding he’d quite danger Shannon’s ire than have a gap in his band, Petty introduced Epstein into the fold in time to rock the underside finish on Lengthy After Darkish. The beginner match like a thumb wrapped round a fist.
One of many album’s hookiest tunes and its second High 40 hit, “Change of Heart” concurrently reached again to Petty’s previous and predicted his future. With a well-documented love of ‘60s Britrock, Petty modeled the track’s punchy power-pop chord modifications on “Do Ya” by The Transfer. ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne wrote the tune whereas he was nonetheless a Transfer member (later masking it with ELO). On the time, Petty had no concept that Lynne would later grow to be his co-producer and be part of him in The Touring Wilburys. However “Change of Heart” does that tried-and-true chord development proud, sounding contemporary, fiery, and really a lot its personal animal.
That observe typifies the hard-charging sound that dominates Lengthy After Darkish. “It’s probably the most energetic album we’ve ever done,” stated Petty. “Finding Out” is among the many speediest, most unrelenting rockers within the band’s repertoire, evoking a herd of stressed racehorses bursting out of a gate. The band rides some primal riffs to rock ‘n’ roll glory on “Deliver Me,” and the equally rifftastic “The Same Old You” swaggers down a again alley that leads someplace satisfyingly Stonesy.
Satirically, the album’s greatest hit is its stylistic outlier. One among Petty’s favourite albums of 1982 was Roxy Music’s ultra-atmospheric Avalon, which led him to take synthesizers extra severely. “You Got Lucky” is dominated by thick, weeping synth chords. However the guitar strains Mike Campbell lays on high are equally sudden.
Campbell later instructed Songfacts, “The guitar solo was Tom’s idea, he suggested we do an Ennio Morricone guitar sound…. a Good, The Bad, and the Ugly kind of thing.” Between the huge, wobbly tremolo of Campbell’s guitar and Benmont Tench’s melancholy, minor-key synthesizer, the observe conjures up a movie noir really feel that’s like nothing else on Lengthy After Darkish.
Elsewhere, the band’s glee about getting again to rocking out is audible. However Petty’s mercurial nature dictated that there wouldn’t be any type of sequel. Certainly, 1985’s Southern Accents would provide among the band’s most shocking musical detours but. No different Petty album of the ‘80s finds him and the Heartbreakers cranking up the amps and kicking out the jams fairly like Lengthy After Darkish.
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