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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Old 06-13-10, 09:33 PM
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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

The mere fact that Tom Petty is putting out his first CD in four years and his first with The Heartbreakers since The Last DJ in 2002 should be newsworthy enough. But if Sound & Vision is to believed, the simultaneous Blu Ray release should be perhaps the greatest sounding commercial recording ever. I'm really tempted to spend $23 on it at Amazon/



Product Description
Some time in the last few years Tom Petty And the Heartbreakers took a left turn. Maybe it was when Petty woke up in the night with the idea of reuniting his first band, Mudcrutch, to cut the album they never got a chance to make back in the early 70's. Maybe it was when the Heartbreakers assembled the mammoth multi-disc 'The Live Anthology,' which detailed thirty years of concerts. Maybe it was when they gave all their home movies, outtakes and live footage to director Peter Bogdanovich to create the Grammy-winning four-hour career documentary 'Runnin Down A Dream.' There have been side projects and experiments since the band last went into the studio to cut a new Tom Petty And the Heartbreakers album.
With 'MOJO,' they have taken their recent freedom and experimentation to heart. They have gone off the reservation and all signs indicate they aren't coming back.

The first thing that hits you about 'MOJO' is that the spirit of the Mudcrutch sessions has carried on with the Heartbreakers. This is the sound of a band playing together in a room not a studio - facing each other, all singing and playing at the same time. The music is alive, with no overdubs or studio trickery. What you hear is what they created on the spot at that time.

Tom Petty says, 'With this album, I want to show other people what I hear with the band. 'MOJO' is where the band lives when it's playing for itself.'

As for the songs, 'MOJO' showcases a wide variety of American music from rock 'n' roll to country and both electric and acoustic blues. And then there are the images in Petty's lyrics which slip in on the melodies and set up a home in your head: The barefoot girl in the high grass chewing on a stick of sugar cane, the run-in with the law that begins when a carload of buddies decide to party with the motel maids, and the hilariously audacious idea of opening an album with an electric blues rocker about Thomas Jefferson's love affair with Sally Hemings. Petty would probably chuck a rock at anyone who called him a poet, but he sure is a southern writer of humor and sensitivity.

'MOJO' has juice and guts but it also has some sweet balladry for the slow dancers and even a wacked-out reggae number that is unlike anything that the Heartbreakers have done before. It's the kind of album nobody's supposed to be able to make anymore. It got here just in time.


PRODUCER'S NOTE:
ABOUT THIS HIGH RESOLUTION BLU-RAY AUDIO DISC

This disc contains all 15 tracks from 'Mojo' in high-resolution 48K 24 bit PCM stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound.
It is an audio-only disc, with basic navigation and song information
displayed on screen.

The 48K 24 bit audio on this disc has 256 times more resolution than a CD, providing greater detail and reproducing the music's full
dynamic range, from the softest to the loudest sounds. To achieve
full dynamic range it's necessary to master with less overall level, so
this disc might not sound as 'loud' as a standard CD or film soundtrack.
To compensate for this, turn up the volume!

The screensaver switches song information to non-static images
of the cover art 30 seconds after each song begins.

Thanks for caring enough to invest in high quality sound. With this disc you are now able to hear at home what we hear in the studio.

The Blu-Ray audio package also includes a code to download the album in one of three formats: 320kbs Mp3, Apple Lossless, or FLAC.



_____________________________________________

edit: I found this from another online news story; guess I don't have to wait to see Best Buy's price on this one.

On June 29, (two weeks after the standard release), in a first by a contemporary music artist, the album will be released as a stand-alone audio only Blu-ray disc which can be played in stereo or 5.1 surround sound. The Blu-ray disc contains 256 times more resolution than a CD, providing greater detail and reproducing the music’s full dynamic range, from the softest to the loudest sounds. In a 14-page cover story on the album the leading audiophile magazine Sound and Vision raved about the Blu-ray while calling the album “stunning.” The Blu-ray version will be available online exclusively from Amazon as well as at all independent retail stores.

Last edited by Decker; 06-13-10 at 10:13 PM.
Old 06-13-10, 09:37 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

From USA Today:

With 'Mojo,' Tom Petty happily sings the blues

MALIBU, Calif. — Tom Petty's plunge into the blues left him ecstatic.

"We finally made a record worthy of the band, one that makes use of the musicianship," he says. "Every rehearsal for years started with blues. It's how we sound after hours. I thought, 'we should stay where we naturally play.' I'm more excited than I've been in a long time."



Mojo, out Tuesday (June 29 on audio Blu-ray and vinyl), is Petty's first album since 2006 solo disc Highway Companion and first with The Heartbreakers since 2002's The Last DJ. Recorded live with minimal overdubs, the 15-track set's blend of blues and melodic rock draws inspiration from the Chess Records vault and especially seminal bluesmen Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter, resulting in the sort of earthy alloy delivered by the Allman Brothers Band or early day Rolling Stones.

"It's very much us," says Petty, whose retro tastes are reflected in a vast collection of vintage guitars, a film noir library and an appetite for World War II history books. "I used to be a little insecure about whether I could sing the blues authentically. I can do my version of it, and this has our stamp on it. It would be an empty exercise if we weren't bringing something to the party."

He's spending this afternoon at his knotty-pine beach house, not far from his main Malibu home. Dolphins frolic along a kelp bed off the coast just yards from his deck. Petty takes a drag on a slim electric cigarette, the device that helped his wife, Dana, quit smoking.

"I've cut way down," he says. "You get vapor and a shot of nicotine, nothing burning."

At 59, Petty says, mortality and health are growing concerns, as is the vitality and integrity of his career. Although long devoted to the blues, he could not have recorded Mojo in his youth or with hired hands.

"We have to be the experienced band we are today to pull off playing this with any conviction," he says. "We found a comfortable identity. I don't want to be turning flips at 60. I see rock musicians who really don't understand how old they are, and it's undignified. I find those people embarrassing."

Musical collaboration

Mojo kicks and gallops, but its maturity is undeniable in the thick blues of U.S. 41, timely immigration tale Don't Pull Me Over and Jefferson Jericho Blues, based on Thomas Jefferson's dalliance with slave Sally Hemings.

On High in the Morning, Petty's the weary voice of hard-earned wisdom: "It hurts my heart to see a young man fall."

"A lot of those great blues records are cautionary, an older man talking to a younger one," says Petty, who draws inspiration from his huge vinyl record collection, also fuel for his Sirius/XM radio show, Tom Petty's Buried Treasure.

Petty credits much of Mojo's loose, vibrant sound to a stronger collaborative effort with Heartbreakers Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Ron Blair, Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston.

"In the past," he says, "I would bring them finished arrangements of everything, which they were never fond of because they felt, 'Where's my contribution?' This time I just brought a bag of songs and we guided the arrangements together. The sound was created in the room.

"We didn't worry about whether someone else would like it," says Petty, who co-produced Mojo with Campbell and Ryan Ulyate. "It was about pleasing ourselves. We couldn't wait to come back every day. Part of that is not having a stern producer there. It might have dampened things had we gotten extremely serious. It was fun. I don't think we had disagreements about anything, which is rare."

Individually and with the band, Petty has sold nearly 60 million albums since 1976, racking up such hits as Don't Do Me Like That, Refugee, Runnin' Down a Dream, I Won't Back Down, Free Fallin' and The Waiting. His sales success and steady popularity on the road and on radio don't mean he lacked fodder for the blues.

He grew up in Gainesville, Fla., with an emotionally and physically abusive father, filed for bankruptcy in 1979 after legal disputes with his label and lost his house to arson in 1987. He split in 1996 from his first wife, Jane Benyo, after 22 years of marriage and succumbed to drugs and depression.

"In my childhood, I was in such a troubled household," Petty says. "I see why I became a rock 'n' roll fanatic. Music was a safe place."

Forty years after forming Mudcrutch, the forerunner to The Heartbreakers, Petty remains fanatical about looking forward, refusing to settle for the safety of nostalgia. On his 45-date North American tour, which runs through early October, Mojo tunes make up 25% of the set list.

"We have no intention of turning into an oldies group," Petty says. "It's very lucrative, and everyone has a great time if you play hits for two hours, but I'm not done and I want people to know it."

Despite amassing three decades of hits, Petty admirably refuses to join the lucrative circuit of touring jukeboxes, says Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot.

"I wish more rockers of his generation would continue to make vibrant music," Kot says. "Neil Young is a good example of someone who puts out new music and stands behind it. As a fan, I welcome the opportunity to see my heroes evolving and playing music they're excited about, rather than pandering and playing those 10 hits again and again."

Translated to the stage, Mojo will "bloom and show the band's muscle," Kot says. "It's definitely a vehicle for the band to strut its stuff and improvise. It reminds me of Bruce Springsteen's late-career appreciation of the E Street Band. This is Petty acknowledging The Heartbreakers as a great band."

Petty's shows are never less than thrilling, says Billboard touring editor Ray Waddell, who has followed his career for 25 years.

"He instinctively knows how to put together a set list with drama, surprises, his best-loved songs and obscurities, with intelligent pacing and a ton of rock muscle," Waddell says. "This guy puts on a show that every aspiring rock artist, and plenty of experienced ones, should see and learn from."

Petty isn't sweating ticket sales; early dates sold out, and he's headed to full venues at Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl. Nor is he worried much about whether fans will like Mojo.

"The challenge these days is getting people to know there is a record," he says. "We used to send a track to radio, they'd play it and alert everyone. That isn't the case now. Radio doesn't play much new rock 'n' roll."

Music's 'in their hands'

Petty is flagging fans by including an MP3 Mojo download by e-mail with every concert ticket purchased.

"It's an attempt to get the music in their hands," Petty says. "We're not giving (Mojo) away; it's built into the ticket price."

Though piracy is difficult to thwart, the solution isn't capitulating to thieves, he says. "Fans should support artists. They're not all wealthy, and they'll make better music if they have the resources. I was watching Amadeus and it struck me how musicians had royalty or aristocrats to bankroll their trip. When we started, our record company housed us, gave us a weekly salary and let us make mistakes in the studio for a year. That's over."

Annoyed that illicit file-sharing siphons profits, he's "more concerned about the devaluing of an album as a complete statement. That's all I know how to do."

He has stopped tracking the industry's shifting business models and has lower sales expectations after seeing CDs tumble the past decade. Wildflowers (1994) sold 3.1 million copies, compared with 487,000 for similarly lauded Highway Companion (2006), according to Nielsen SoundScan.

As other artists seek fresh revenue streams through commercial tie-ins, "my reaction has been to retreat," Petty says. "I don't think it's worth it to associate your song with a truck. And we don't have tour sponsors. It's tempting, because they do offer significant amounts of money, but I like the feeling that this is our band, and we own it."

Besides, he says, music isn't about money. It's an unquenchable passion. Any young wannabe weighing a decision between law school or electric guitar should head for the legal library, he says.

"If you have a choice, you won't be able to do this," he says. "It will beat you up so bad. You need that love of music in your soul or you won't survive."
Old 06-13-10, 10:18 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

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Old 06-14-10, 08:54 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

More and more, I feel that Petty is the only one out there standing up for what is right in rock.

As with all of his albums, I'll get this one.
Old 06-14-10, 10:37 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Though it's definitely a well recorded and professionally played album, I listen to Tom Petty for his great songwriting and in my opinion, there's no really great songs on this album. Great jams, great playing by Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench but I'll be damned if there's a memorable song in the bunch.
Old 06-14-10, 11:30 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by Mikael79
More and more, I feel that Petty is the only one out there standing up for what is right in rock.

As with all of his albums, I'll get this one.
I think The Boss wants to have a word with you
Old 06-14-10, 06:55 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by cungar
Though it's definitely a well recorded and professionally played album, I listen to Tom Petty for his great songwriting and in my opinion, there's no really great songs on this album. Great jams, great playing by Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench but I'll be damned if there's a memorable song in the bunch.

I totally agree with this. I like tracks 2 and 3 quite a bit, but not much really stands out here.
Old 06-14-10, 09:31 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Is there somewhere to hear it online (legally)? I hate having to wait two weeks to hear it and there's no way I'd buy it twice just to hear it earlier than the blu ray release.
Old 06-14-10, 10:11 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by Decker
Is there somewhere to hear it online (legally)? I hate having to wait two weeks to hear it and there's no way I'd buy it twice just to hear it earlier than the blu ray release.
You can stream the whole album from ESPN's site (yeah, I have no idea why ESPN):

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/theli...ory?id=5260264
Old 06-14-10, 11:02 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by Decker
To achieve full dynamic range it's necessary to master with less overall level, so this disc might not sound as 'loud' as a standard CD or film soundtrack. To compensate for this, turn up the volume!
I like how they have to put a disclaimer for something that should be normal. I don't think they're right about film soundtracks though, as they are not compressed like modern CDs.

At least it's kind of educational though. Maybe more people will become aware of the loudness war.
Old 06-14-10, 11:26 PM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by Coral
You can stream the whole album from ESPN's site (yeah, I have no idea why ESPN):

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/theli...ory?id=5260264
Now why didn't it occur to me to check there?

Thanks for the info. Listening now.
Old 06-15-10, 05:11 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by Decker
Now why didn't it occur to me to check there?
Apparently you can get the World Cup updates from Tom Petty's website.
Old 06-15-10, 08:24 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

This review pretty much sums up how I feel about the album

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/r...kers-mojo/2157
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Mojo

by Matthew Cole on June 14, 2010

**½ stars

Tom Petty hasn't recorded an album with the Heartbreakers since 2002's The Last DJ, and that offering, a musically flat and thematically overheated protest against the commercial excesses of the music industry, probably hasn't done much to tide fans over in the interim (meanwhile, Petty's populist scruples haven't stopped him from asking upward of $150 for his latest concerts). All the more puzzling, then, that Petty and company don't even attempt a return to form on Mojo. Instead, they opt for bluesy jamming over their familiar Byrds-style jangle, with all of the appropriate signifiers of rootsy Americana in place: there's a chugging ode to the highway, "U.S. 41," that comes complete with honking harmonica interludes; "Jefferson Jericho Blues" and "Running Man's Bible" provide an early airing for the requisite religious iconography; and "First Flash of Freedom" actually has a bit about untameable wild mustangs running across "hills that no rich man could claim." As paeans to the rugged American sprit go, Mojo is about as evocative as a middle school civ report; you keep waiting for a line about Davie Crockett or the Alamo.

Since he can't seem to resist these thudding clichés, it's probably for the best that Petty keeps a low profile for much of the album's runtime. The record is long on instrumentals and short on singing, with Petty showing up mostly to fill space between guitar solos and extended jams, giving Mojo a higher Heartbreakers-to-Petty ratio than any previous release. But if Mojo is meant to be the band's showcase, it's not an especially successful one. Sure, they're a tight set of musicians with undeniable chemistry, and the album affords them plenty of chances to play off one another, but this hardly makes an argument for Mojo's existence. Does anyone doubt that Mike Campbell knows his way around a blues lead, or that a bunch of musicians who have spent decades playing together could lock a groove with easy cohesion?

The trouble is that the Heartbreakers sound less like themselves and more like Creedence Clearwater Revival here ("Candy"), Muddy Waters there ("High in the Morning"), and the Allman Brothers everywhere. On "Don't Pull Me Over," they even dip into the bland reggae riffing that every jam band guitarist worthy of his hemp Phish hat has rehashed at least once or twice.

Unsurprisingly, the Heartbreakers play the material well, and the fact that the album was recorded live with no overdubs is a testament to their skill. While few of the songs are outright bad, they simply fail to push beyond the roads well-worn by their obvious influences (though they do often push on quite a lot longer than they ought to: There are quite a lot of five- and six-minute tracks that aren't nearly interesting enough to justify their length). And from harmonicas to the honky-tonk pianos, the instrumentation isn't much more creative than the lyrics.

With neither their own sound nor their best songwriting in place, the only thing that the Heartbreakers end up showcasing here is the basic appeal of the blues idiom: that a group of skilled musicians playing with those familiar scales and progressions will sound pretty damn good, even if originality never becomes part of the equation. But anyone who's been to a bar on blues night could tell you that. If you'd like to have that message delivered by Petty himself, Mojo may be the record for you. Otherwise, your money is better spent in support of whatever local blues act is working through essentially the same material next weekend. That, or one-tenth of a Tom Petty ticket.

* Label: Reprise
* Street Date: June 15, 2010
Old 06-15-10, 10:27 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

I'll give this CD a listen through the ESPN link, but I'm not liking the reviews.

By the way, it's $9.99 at Best Buy, Target, and Amazon (the standard version, not the Blu-Ray).
Old 06-15-10, 10:39 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

Originally Posted by cungar
Though it's definitely a well recorded and professionally played album, I listen to Tom Petty for his great songwriting and in my opinion, there's no really great songs on this album. Great jams, great playing by Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench but I'll be damned if there's a memorable song in the bunch.
About how I feel, too. I liked his last solo album, Highway Companion (from 2006), but even then, that was the first album of his, or with The Heartbreakers, that I've truly enjoyed since Wildflowers. Everything else released in the past decade or so has just been less than memorable to me.
Old 06-15-10, 11:27 AM
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Re: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (6/15/10)

I agree with the review. Nothing really stands out on this CD. The songs aren't very catchy and are pretty bland and generic. Nothing terrible, just nothing that I can see myself listening to again.

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