Damn the Torpedoes [Original recording remastered]

Tom Petty, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 20, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1979
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B00005ABK8
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,338 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Though easily as consistent as their first two releases, it was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' third release, Damn the Torpedoes, that catapulted Petty and company into the first rank of American rock acts. It's not hard to understand why. With a slate of driving songs destined to become FM staples ("Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl," "Even the Losers," "Don't Do Me Like That"), it's an album that plays much like half a greatest-hits collection. Fusing a rootsy sensibility heavy with Dylan and Byrds affectations with his own pop instincts (honed by early stints with Mudcrutch and Dwight Twilley) and coupling them with one of rock's most consistently underrated powerhouses, the Heartbreakers, Petty's throwback traditionalism oddly found him riding the crest of the new wave in the late '70s. All tracks on this new edition have been sonically upgraded via state-of-the-art digital remastering. --Jerry McCulley

Product Description

Damn The Torpedoes, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' third album (and first on Backstreet/MCA,) proved to be the breakthrough for the singer-songwriter-guitarist and his band (guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch). The album was released on October 19, 1979, after a highly publicized lawsuit in which Petty made a groundbreaking stand for artist rights, refusing to be sold by one record company to another without his consent. Damn The Torpedoes became the group's first Top 10, remaining at #2 for seven weeks (only Pink Floyd's The Wall kept it from the top). It sold over 5-million copies, and had 3 top 40 hits and 4 top 5 rock-radio hits. The album was an immediate critical success, with Rolling Stone declaring Damn The Torpedoes "the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album we have all been waiting for." Produced by Petty and Jimmy Iovine, the album reached double platinum quickly and catapulted the band to arena performances where they played such classic cuts as the infectious Top 10 hit "Don't Do Me Like That," blistering rockers "Refugee" and "Here Comes My Girl," and the exhilarating "Even The Losers." Bursting with full speed ahead American rock `n' roll, the album brought together rock, folk, country and blues in what has become Petty and the Heartbreakers' signature style. The release garnered Petty his first Rolling Stone Magazine cover in February 1980. He has appeared on four covers since then. In 2003, nearly 25 years after its release, Rolling Stone honored Damn The Torpedoes on its list of "the greatest albums ever made," and in 2002 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, during their first year of eligibility. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are one of the very few artists to score a top five record on the Billboard charts in five consecutive decades. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prime Petty, November 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Damn the Torpedoes (Audio CD)

Once upon a time, long before middle age and Traveling Wilburys and Full Moon Fever, decades before the annoying David Spade caricature, a youthful Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers rocked with breathtaking passion and talent. They came fully into their prime with this recording, bursting into the public eye in November of 1979 with a performance of "Refugee" on Saturday Night Live. Blown away, I was at the record store the next day to buy this amazing album.

This is the finest recording made by the band, and the obvious choice for anyone who wants to buy their first Tom Petty CD. Some may prefer a greatest-hits package, but these songs were meant to be heard together, to flow as an album. Some may prefer the older mellower acoustic-guitar-strumming Petty, and that Petty has continued to make excellent music. But to buy Full Moon Fever first would be a bit like buying Springsteen doing The Rising instead of Born to Run, or Dylan doing Love and Theft instead of Blonde on Blonde. There are graceful comebacks, and then there is youthful creativity with passion and sometimes genius - Damn the Torpedoes is the latter.

This album contains everything you need to know about the band at its best. The stripped-down sound (more polished than garage rock, but just as vital), Petty's voice going from whines to raspy growls to scathing Dylanesque bitterness, evocative lyrics that take the listener through every possible emotion in 3 minutes, that 12-string Rickenbacker on the cover photo with the singer as skinny as I was back then, Mike Campbell's Chuck Berry-esque guitar solos, a driving rhythm section. Tom Petty would never come back to rock like this again. He's done music that's arguably as good, but rarely as consistent, and never with such blazing energy and gutsiness.

It would be easy to praise song after song in detail, but the bottom line is that this is indeed the quintessential Tom Petty album, every song a gem, the singer and his band at their youthful peak.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The quintessential Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album, May 17, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Damn the Torpedoes (Audio CD)

Those who thought that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers were punk or new wave when they started releasing albums in the late 1970s were missing the point. At a time when heavy metal and guitar rock was dominating the airwaves, this was a group that harkened back to the sounds of the British Invasion and embodied the spirit of the great American garage band. Petty wrote the songs that remind you of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and the Heartbreakers provided the backing. The group recorded a couple of early albums with Shelter records and started off as bigger hits in England than in the U.S. and then Shelter got gobbled up by MCA, which did not sit well with Petty. There were the first of many legal tangles between the two and "Damn the Torpedoes" was the result of a settlement. Released on an MCA subsidiary, Backstreet, the title was clearly a shot across the bow of MCA and their fight would be continued.

Despite the legal wrangler and creative disputes, this 1979 album would be the definitive release for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, combining some old songs from his early days in L.A. playing with Mudcrutch with some new songs. It was certainly the group's breakthrough effort, both a critical and commercial success. The album made it to #2 on the Billboard charts on the basis of a trio of strong songs. The opening track, the Top 20 "Refugee," written by Petty and Mike Campell," shows the deft touch of producer Jimmy Iovine, who put Benmont Tench's organ playing up front with the vocals. The song contrasts nicely with another Petty-Campbell hit, the melancholy but melodic "Here Comes My Girl." Add to this the album's one Top 10 hit, "Don't Do Me Like That," another song of love and deception, with another great organ solo from Tench.

The common denominator on these songs is their basic simplicity. A Tom Petty song is almost always based on just a few chords. Musically, these are very tight songs, which speaks to the heart of their appeal, and credit must be paid to Iovine's role as producer on this album. Lyrically the dominating theme is one of the pain of relationships and the tone is almost relentlessly melancholy, like on "Even the Losers." Even a ballad like "Louisiana Rain" wallows in the sadness of pain. The result is one of the best rock albums of the 1970s and although Tom Petty came close to this level again with "Hard Promises," "Full Moon Fever," and "Wildflowers," this remains the album you find on the top of the mountain.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Petty In Pink.....?, January 30, 2004

By 

Darrin K "Darrin K" (Gold Coast, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Damn the Torpedoes (Audio CD)

I was 13 years old when I first heard this album and I am nearly 39 now , hence for 2/3rds of my life, this album has been part of the essential soundtrack (along with of course 'Cheap Trick at Budokan'. It sounded phenominal in 1978; as relevant in its lyrics in 88; hadnt dated by 1998; and is gauranteed to still be in my CD player in 2008. Yes, sure there has been other albums, compilations of TP, his wanderings with Stevie Nicks, Travelling Wilburys, and Bob Dylan. Tom Petty however managed to do everything perfect on this album and all the songs are etched into my memory cells, every song passed the test of time, and every one a classic. This album is an ideal first album to buy of Tom Petty's given that all the songs are instantly likeable rock classics. Dont not be put off by the 'leather jacket and pink shirt look' on the cover, this was after all released in 1978. Perfect album for the youth to the youth at heart.