Buckaroo Reviews: A Highly Irregular Column
By Matt Rowe
The California Tech - Friday, May 3, 1985
Southern Accents | Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers | MCA/Backstreet Records
Southern Accents sounds like a compilation of tracks from two different albums. Four songs -- including the hit single "Don't Come Around Here No More" -- are heavy on synthesizer and R&B touches; three of them are co-written and co-produced by Petty and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics (whose new album, Be Yourself Tonight, will be raved about soon in this space). Southern Accents' other five songs are classic Heartbreakers: from the opener, "Rebel," to the closer "The Best of Everything," the band is at the top of its form -- with a little dash of drawl to go with the supposedly unifying concept behind (hidden behind?) the title.
Unfortunately, these two very different styles of music are not relegated to one side each; they are disconcertingly interwoven in an attempt to unify the album. This has given many critics cause to call the album "uneven" or "a failed concept album." For it it is, as a whole, uneven -- but the two half-albums that make up Southern Accents are, seperately, consistent in their brilliance.
Records: Two gems by Petty, Prince
By Jim Higgins
The Milwaukee Sentinel - May 3, 1985
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | Southern Accents | MCA
Sometimes you have to trust the people who make the music you like, even when they do things that scare you. When Tom Petty announced some months ago he was recording tracks for a new album with David A. Stewart of the Eurythmics, I nearly panicked.
Since the first time I heard "American Girl," and particularly since I heard Petty in 1979 at the Uptown Theatre, he has ranked high on my list of favorite rock performers. I've loved the basic simplicity of his arrangements and the yearning quality of his songs. When he sang "The Waiting" on "Saturday Night Live," he nearly broke my heart.
New direction
Plattsburgh Press-Republican - Friday, May 3, 1985
Tom Petty's first "concept" album explores the attitudes toward Southerners and those that Southerners have toward themselves. The hit song from the album is "Don't Come Around Here No More," made with help from Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.
Rock Videos
By Keith Thomas
Winnipeg Free Press - Sunday, May 5, 1985
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Don't Come Around Here No More
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers meet Alice in Wonderland. This clip is packed with oversized everything, from coffee cups to lumps of sugar. Ouch! It's a cute idea. Too bad it doesn't work. Watching Petty play the Mad Hatter just isn't my cut of tea. And seeing him and the Heartbreakers devour a young lady, who by now is a huge cake, made me lose my appetite. The slow-moving song has its good moments, but that's about it. Lewis Carroll must be turning over in his grave -- I simply turned the channel.
Tom Petty's latest
By Mark Punders
Technology News - May 6, 1985
Southern Accents, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on MCA Records.
On his previous five albums, Tom Petty has played grassroots, Sixties-based rock 'n' roll (with a guitar sound inescapably compared to the Byrds') with traditional boy-girl lyrics. Both Petty's style and his subject matter vary more widely on Southern Accents, his latest LP.
As the album's title and cover (Winslow Homer's 1865 painting "The Veteran in a New Field) suggest, a Southern theme threads its way through the record. The album opens with "Rebels," a rocket in Petty's trademark chiming wall-of-guitar style (with longtime producer Jimmy Iovine) about a man "born a rebel, down in Dixie;" a similar character washes up on the beach in "Dogs on the Run," another anthemic rocker. "Spike" is an instrumentally spare country shuffle in which a Southerner amusedly observes a punk -- mockingly commenting, "Boys, we got a man with a dog collar on/Y'think we oughta throw ol' Spike a bone?" "Southern Accents" is a string-backed piano-and-vocal ballad which laments, "I got my own way of living/But everything is done/With a southern accent/Where I come from."
Call it gaudy, but this stage isn't Petty
Spokane Chronicle - May 7, 1985
Tom Petty will be giving his now-healed hand (broken when he smashed it into a wall last October) a through workout this summer.
The rock star and his Heartbreakers are planning to make their first concert tour in three years. Accompanying the group will be a massive set, built to look like a southern mansion.
Petty, whose "Southern Accents" LP sold more than a million copies in its first three weeks of release, is currently having the set -- dubbed "Tara-West" -- built in a Southern California warehouse.
Designed to look like the front of a plantation manor, it'll include pillars that house sound monitors and lighting boards.
Plans call for Petty and the Heartbreakers to be on the road June 6 through Aug. 3.
Video Views
By Keith Thomas
The Spokesman-Review - May 7, 1985
TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS: "Don't Come Around Here No More" -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers meet Alice in Wonderland. This clip is packed with oversized everything, from coffee cups to donuts to lumps of sugar. Ouch! It's a cute idea. Too bad it doesn't work.
Watching Petty play the Mad Hatter just isn't my cup of tea. And seeing him and the Heartbreakers devour a young lady, who by now is a huge cake, made me lose my appetite. The slow-moving song has its good moments, but that's about it.
Lewis Caroll must be turning over in his grave -- I simply turned the channel. (PASS)
Southern Accents | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | MCA Records
By Jamie Reno
The Daily Aztec - May 8, 1985
Ever since their eponymous debut album was released in 1976 (containing the classic "American Girl"), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have been atop record charts and critics' poles with their unique brand of rock 'n' roll. Their music draws from an enticing blend of influences including The Byrds, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Gram Parsons.
"Rebels," the opening song, may in retrospect be looked back upon as the quintessential Tom Petty tune. It has all the elements that have made Petty and his band such a heralded group over the last decade. The song contains the lilting keyboards, Petty's ever-present Rickenbacker electric 12-string, the cymbal-laden percussion track, the mutinous tone of the lyrics, and, of course, Petty's wily, Dylanesque vocals. This song could very well become a group anthem.
Petty travels heavy
By Marilyn Beck
Houston Chronicle - Thursday, May 9, 1985
HOLLYWOOD - Tom Petty will certainly be giving his now-healed hand (broken when he smashed it into a wall last October) a thorough workout this summer. The very hot rock star and his Heartbreakers group are planning to make their first concert tour in three years their biggest ever - literally.
They intend to tote their own antebellum mansion along for the trek.
Petty, whose "Southern Accents" LP sold more than a million copies in its first three weeks of release, is currently having the massive set - "Tara-West" - built in a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley. Designed to look like the front of a plantation manor, it'll include pillars that house sound monitors and lighting boards. There will also be two female backing singers and a three-man horn section on the tour.
Plans call for Petty and the Heartbreakers to be on the road June 6 through Aug. 3 - starting in Toledo, with concerts also in Philadelphia, the New York area, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, San Antonio, Atlanta, Tampa, San Francisco and L.A.