re: Any thoughts on Tom Petty's place in music?

quote:

---

has never been pretentious

---

Stripped down, middle of the road "mainstream" rock with some pop sensibilities. Gainesville produced a lot of great musicians from that period - Stephen Stills, Don Felder, Bernie Leadon, Petty, among others.

Although he kind of "up" produced a little more in the 80s, Petty never went for the over-the-top orchestrations or deviated too far from his core sound. Solid songs, solid band. One of the few groups of "ugly" cats that made the transition to the video era.

Video indeed killed most of the radio stars, but not the Heartbreakers.