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X-factors
Tom Petty and the Wallflowers struggle through an Eminem world
BY MATT ASHARE

Tom Petty sees the writing on the wall. And the news isn’t good for a mild-mannered, classic-rock stoner like himself. For all that the recent midterm elections may have signaled a shift to the moderate right, American popular culture continues to embrace the X-treme, as in X Games, X Boxes, X-rated, and X-tra-value meals. Pop music is no exception. With Eminem now boasting big box-office returns from 8 Mile to go along with his platinum albums, the once timid American media have the controversial Slim Shady, along with his X-treme raps about women, gays, and violence, in a bear hug. The middle of the road is getting mighty narrow: with the exception of Santana’s Shaman (Arista) and packaged-to-move greatest-hits sets by the Stones (Forty Licks on Virgin) and Elvis Presley (30 #1 Hits on RCA), the top spots on the Billboard 200 are populated by artists with an edge, from the almost naked Christina Aguilera to the dressed-to-thrill Avril Lavigne, from the dirty-South grooves of Nelly to the super-slick moves of Justin Timberlake.

If the sales charts don’t paint a pretty picture for Petty — his new The Last DJ (Warner Bros.) has sunk to #89 on the Billboard 200 after only five weeks on the chart and a less-than-auspicious debut at #9 — then the situation on radio is just plain ugly. There’s simply no room for older dudes on "Modern Rock" playlists, where Pearl Jam can practically be considered a heritage act and names like Saliva, Stone Sour, and Seether are in heavy rotation. And though the title track of Petty’s new album with his long-time band the Heartbreakers has been hanging in there at #24 on the "Mainstream Rock Tracks" chart, it’s an aberration on a playlist that favors more, uh, extreme acts like Puddle of Mudd, Disturbed, and Theory of a Deadman.

None of this comes as any surprise to Petty. Indeed, The Last DJ amounts to an indictment of the current state of the music industry. But any bitterness that went into the writing of the opening title track is overshadowed by the sadness that creeps into his weathered voice as he warns of the disappearance of "The Last DJ" and, with him, our "freedom of choice." It’s a textbook us-against-them scenario. The bad guys — "the top brass" or "the boys upstairs" — force-feed "mediocrity" to the good guys — the upstanding folk who’d rather hear good music by artists like, well, Tom Petty — while the Heartbreakers carry his tastefully chiming Byrdsy guitar along at a comfortable gallop. Discouragement, not embattled righteousness, infects Petty’s delivery like weeds overtaking an untended garden. Even he has to admit that it’s not just them but "we" who "celebrate mediocrity." In other words, radio programmers are only giving the kids what they want.

Petty’s pessimism reaches out past radio programmers on the second track, "Money Becomes King," another allegorical tale tinged with nostalgia for the good ol’ days. Alluding to the Chuck Berry classic "Johnny B. Goode," he follows the career of a "Cat named Johnny/Who loved to play and sing/When money wasn’t king." With light orchestral backing by keyboardist Benmont Tench, who along with low-key guitarist Mike Campbell is one of his more underappreciated musical assets, he recalls when "the sound was my salvation" before "Everything got bigger/And the rules began to bend." This time, wry wit offsets the bitter taste of Petty’s pathos: Johnny lip-synchs his "new lite-beer commercial" before the big gig, and after despairing that there’s "no magic left to hear," Petty finishes the rhyme with the well-timed one-liner "All the music gave me was a craving for lite beer."

Again it’s sadness bordering on despair that comes across as he concedes defeat to the forces of commercialism. Against that, of course, you have to set all the money he’s made from the growth of the music and concert industry. For classic rockers like Petty, the larger arena tour circuit is a cash cow that newer artists have little access to. And though The Last DJ is floundering on the sales charts, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Greatest Hits (MCA) is, after 435 weeks on the "Top Pop Catalog" chart, still standing firm at #25, having been certified platinum nine times.

So the news isn’t all bad for an artist of Petty’s stature. After all, he’s accumulated close to three decades of catalogue to fall back on. And if his obsession with the current state of cultural affairs sometimes gets the best of him — the harsh, simplistic "Joe" finds Petty in the role of the devilish "Joe the CEO" lining his pockets by manipulating hungry poets and angel whores — The Last DJ also has tracks where he drops the self-serving music-biz gripes and gets back to the kind of romantic, anthemic Americana that he’s built his career on. "Dreamville," with its warm bed of acoustic piano and softly strummed guitar, may not unseat "Free Falling" and "The Waiting" as Petty favorites, but it’s evidence that when radio comes back around to more mild-mannered rock stars, the Heartbreakers will be ready.

Jakob Dylan and his Wallflowers, a band whose rootsy mix of guitar and tasteful keyboards puts them in league with the Heartbreakers (and who’ll be at Avalon this Monday), aren’t quite so fortunate. Although their breakthrough second CD, 1996’s Bringing Down the Horse (Interscope), proved they could move units like a Tom Petty, three CDs into his career the younger Dylan doesn’t have the catalogue to fall back on, or the clout to headline summer sheds without a hit CD in heavy rotation. And if its first week on the charts is any indication, the long overdue Red Letter Days (Interscope) isn’t shaping up to be that hit CD. After five weeks in play, the disc’s first single — "When You’re on Top," a half-spoken/half-sung attempt at the kind of free-form poetics his father made famous — has made its only real dent on the "Adult" charts; it’s down in the #30s on the "Adult Top 40 Tracks" chart, and the band’s publicity firm, Shore Fire, is boasting that it’s "#1 at Triple A Radio across the country."

In the first paragraph of a favorable review in this month’s Interview, senior critic Greil Marcus calls the single "a break through the wall of craft and moderation the group has always played behind." And with its semi-programmed beat and searching lyrics like "I need a thought that I can believe in," it might just be less moderate than past Wallflowers singles. But in a culture that celebrates Eminem, Dylan and the Wallflowers can’t help seeming as temperate and restrained as Petty and his Heartbreakers. The track’s presence on the more moderate "Adult" charts and its absence from the higher-profile "Modern Rock Tracks" and "Mainstream Rock Tracks" charts testify to that.

Dylan seems to be aware of his need to be more extreme, or at least to make more modern-sounding music. "Everybody Out of the Water," a hard-hitting track that would appear to have been inspired by September 11, is outfitted with dark, distorted guitars and an aggressive guitar solo. A programmed drumbeat underpins the opening section of the moody and cryptic "Three Ways"; a spooky trip-hop groove gives some dark atmosphere to the bitter "Heath and Happiness"; and the urgent "Too Late To Quit" is driven by an electro-industrial-sounding rhythmic banging. But these sonic updates are window dressing on a traditional if solid album by a mild-mannered singer-songwriter fronting a tasteful band in an era that has little use for such things. That’s not Jakob Dylan’s fault, any more than it is Tom Petty’s. It’s not even something you can pin on Petty’s "boys upstairs." We live in an age of supersized X-tra-value meals, where even the most mainstream artists are marketed as razor-edged rebels. It’s an Eminem world, and Tom Petty and the Wallflowers have to live with that.

The Wallflowers headline Avalon this Monday, December 2. Call (617) 423-NEXT.

Issue Date: November 28 - December 5, 2002
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