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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's His Best, Folks, October 20, 2001
This is Tom Petty's finest album. He made it at a time when he realized he wasn't getting any younger, his midlife crisis work with Jeff Lynne past him, battling the end of his marriage; all those strange feelings were condensed and channeled through his songwriting, and the result was the magnificent WILDFLOWERS. It's Petty's first album produced by Rick Rubin (who had already lent his talents to the Heartbreakers' teriffic "Mary Jane's Last Dance" the previous year), and the earthy, crisp sound is a perfect compliment to both Petty's voice and his songs. The beauty of Tom Petty's music is both the casual ease he seems to effortlessly slip into, and the way his songs just manage to stick in your head. At first listen, you'll always find one or two songs that stand out, and certainly the others are good, but not necessarily great. But then, they get stuck. Try as you might, you simply can't get them out of your head. And it's at this point that you realize, all these other songs are just as great. And by that time, you realize just how beautiful the album is. WILDFLOWERS is no exception. The simple instrumentation (powered by Steve Ferrone's minimal drumming) hides the complexity of the work.Lyrically, this is also Petty's strongest album to date. "You Don't Know How It Feels" and "Hard On Me" deal with the pain of isolation, the fear of loneliness. Songs like "Only A Broken Heart" and the title track are almost reassurances, like he's saying it's okay to feel this pain, you're headed somewhere better. "A Higher Place" and "It's Good To Be King" have a twinge of cynicism beneath their ideologies, while "To Find A Friend" and "Crawling Back To You" are about the pain of a relationship (the latter especially touching). And in "Wake Up Time," a very fitting coda, Petty especially confronts his age, with wisdom, reflection, even a little pessimism and wonder ("You were so cool, back in high school, What happened?"). Musically, while most of the Heartbreakers did end up contributing a lot towards the album (certainly much more than on FULL MOON FEVER), this is a Tom Petty solo album, so it allows for more creative arrangements, and plenty of guest stars. Ringo Starr plays drums on "To Find A Friend," the wonderful slide guitarist Marty Rifkin is buried deep in the mix on "House In The Woods," and Petty himself even takes his hand at lead guitar on a couple of numbers. There are a few absolute get-yer-yayas-out jam tunes, "You Wreck Me" and especially "Honey Bee," sort of the sweatier, swampier second-cousin to "Mary Jane's Last Dance." Petty would continue to record teriffic music, more or less with his fellow Heartbreakers, but he'd never quite reach this level of sophistication and artistry again. A must-own.
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by Tom Petty 
