Echo

About

Like <i>Wildflowers</i> a few years earlier, <i>Echo</i> is the sound of an artist not exactly known for his vulnerability slowing down and letting the pain sink in. Petty was skeptical of <i>Echo</i> in later years: He once dismissed the track “Room at the Top” as among the most depressing songs in rock history. And he was so concerned about what lessons his fans might take from his late-1990s heroin addiction that the whole period was effectively scrubbed from the band’s history for year. But much like Bob Dylan’s <i>Blood on the Tracks</i>—another record written in the fog of divorce—the messiness of <i>Echo</i> is part of its appeal. Petty was a rock songwriter, one who’d made his name by compressing big feelings into small, simple form. <i>Echo</i> wa, compared to the rest of the Heartbreakers’ catalog, volatile and indirect: The most upbeat songs (“Swingin’,” “Free Girl Now,” “About to Give Out”) find glory in their own defeat; the saddest ones (“Room at the Top,” “One More Day, One More Night,” “Echo”) are also the most comforting. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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