Customer Reviews

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Playback

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a compiliation of Tom Petty's music videos, I have rated it at 4 stars instead of 5 because I thought they could have included 5.1 mix instead of only stereo. The Menu's weren't much just a black and white screen that said "Playback". The Songs on the DVD are "Here Comes My Girl" "Refugee" "The Waiting" "A Woman In Love(It's Not Me)" "Insider" "You Got Lucky" "Change Of Heart" "Don't Come Around Here No More" "Jammin' Me" "I Won't Back Down" "Runnin' Down A Dream" "Free Fallin'" "A Face In The Crowd" "Yer So Bad" "Learning To Fly" "Into The Great Wide Open" "Mary Jane's Last Dance"

If you have seen Any of Tom's Videos then you know his weird, artistic way of doing music videos. After I was done watching thid DVD I said out Loud "Wow, that was great!"

If there is any artist who should be nominated the poet laureate of California, Tom Petty would be it... I didn't know until I picked up this video that MTV had made a Video Vanguard Award just for him, because he invented the music video and the MTV! Perhaps in a successful attempt to promote his band (as any fans of Heartbreakers would know he did relentlessely), he took what was then a promotional format for musicians to advertise their music and turned it into an new art form. It was on the strength of his vison and talent as an artist that he was able to attract the best and the brightest, film directors, supermodels and artists to participate in his videos. Whether its' Johnny Depp or Kim Basinger in a dedidedly non-traditional role, or whether its film directors and video animation special effects people, they all worked together to create this incredible collection of videos.

The tape covers a variety of styles, from stage perfomances to animation, to mini films, which was how he conceptualized his videos. What unites most of his work, however, is that it was inspird by the California experience. You can see it in many incarnations. Whether it's the sixties in Learning to fly, and he gets it right, going back all the way to the engineers that flocked to California to work on militray aircraft design and their children, who turned to hippies or whther its the vagaries of being a present day celebrity or the malls, or the politics and power of the ranchers of old in his Insider song, Tom Petty celebrates much and misses little of what is California, while sidestepping the usual cliches of surfers and new age glitter that one usually associates with California.

This DVD is a wonderful collection of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at there best. I love watching the videos as they evolve. A fare warning though, this an incredible collection of videos from Tom Petty but it only covers their work up until Mary Janes last dance. There is nothing from any releases after greatest hits. Still worth owning and enjoying.

Yeah, we've seen the videos on MTV (back when MTV actually PLAYED music videos!)but it's great to see Tom Petty's best videos packaged together in this "greatest hits" type package. So many great little moments--Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne join Petty & the band on one number (whose name now escapes me).

And who can forget Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway on the "Into The Great Wide Open" video?? Amazing! If you loved watching Petty's videos back in the 80's, you will enjoy this DVD!

The good news is that this is the same edition of "Playback" that was originally released on VHS in 1995. The videos are great and there are plenty of them: a total of seventeen that span nearly two decades of this bands' career.

The bad news is that this is the same edition of "Playback" that was originally released on VHS in 1995. The audio hasn't been upgraded from stereo to 5.1 and there are no added features. Even the plain black and white menu screams of a slapped-together-in-a-hurry product. So . . . great to have these videos on DVD at last, but points off for not making this just a bit more special.

This is a great collection of Tom Petty videos. They are in chronological order, and it's neat to see him from the beginning of his career to Mary Janes Last Dance. You can really see an improvement over the years in his videos. This is a must-have for any Tom Petty fan.

shouts "thrown together by the record execs. for some quick cash!" black and white background, no extra features, just videos and a menu screen saying "play movie" and "scene selection". the videos themselves are pretty good, some interesting ones later into their career. but really needs a few bonus features like a few live videos or some interviews. wouldn't quite reccomend it.

"Video Killed the Radio Star" was the name of the first video ever played on MTV.
Twenty years later we know that this bold prediction is not true. Music videos, which
took the recording industry by storm and created a whole new entertainment medium are
today, slowly sinking into obscurity.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Playback" is a case in point. Few would argue with the
quality of the music. Opening with a 1979 cut of "Here Comes My Girl" and closing with
1993's "Mary Janes's Last Dance", this DVD evolves chronologically through some of
the great pop songs of the past twenty-five years.

As a big Tom Petty fan, It's hard to be unbiased. I like every cut on the DVD. In fact, I
love most of them! After a single viewing of this disk, anyone born after 1950 will
appreciate the way that this southern rocker from the 70's grows into one of the great
songwriters and performers of the 80's and 90's.

The videos themselves are a different story. They range in quality from the genius,
"Don't Come Around Here No More", to the atrocious, "Runnin' Down A Dream".
Perhaps I'm getting old, but in seems that visual stimulation does nothing to enhance the
music.

What these videos do however, is tell the story of why MTV and the music video industry
are in decline. The early offerings from the disk are from the late `70's and early `80's
and they are great! They include concert style cuts and simple visuals. ...Then this new
art form got ahead of itself. The mid `80's had great Petty songs, but the video producers
seemed to be in a race to see who could be the most abstract and absurd. They attempt to
tell stories that have nothing to do with the music.

In a mater of four or five years the great MTV phenomenon evolved into a series of two
or three second visual bytes that are hard on the senses and distract from the very song
that they are meant to enhance. ...Darwin was wrong. At least when it comes to music
videos, evolution is not always for the better.

If you like Tom Petty, buy this DVD! But of course, you already knew that. If on the
other hand, you are wondering what ever happened to music videos, rent this DVD and
see how poor visual effects can hurt great music and be a real Heartbreaker.

John Amback
February 14, 2003

This collection of music videos is fantastic. I already owned it on VHS (what is that?) but upgraded to DVD. The song "Don't Come Around Here No More" (or something like that) is a wonderful Alice in Wonderland theme, well worth the price of the disk. Turning Alice into a cake and eating her was way before they did a similar stunt in Star Trek, Next Gen with Troy.

Very creative videos, wish more videos today had the story telling of this collection.

These videos bring a complementary visual element to what is otherwise a pretty static-looking set of CD inserts and old record album covers. On Video, Petty seems to go off in somewhat zany, cartoonish directions--moreso than Petty live in concert. So these make a nice strand of creative work Petty can leave behind, as he's not getting any younger.

If the question is "What is it about Tom Petty that makes him so great?" then this DVD is a big part of the answer.