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Chasing the Long Tail of New Media

Southern Accents

Certain Songs #1017: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Dogs on the Run”

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Album: Southern Accents
Year: 1985

For an album that was originally conceived — and sometimes reviewed as — Tom Petty’s big concept album about his heritage, Southern Accents was a bit of a mess.

Stylistically, it was their most diverse album since the debut, and so even beyond the ground-breaking “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” there were anthemic statements like “Rebels,” forgettable white-boy soul workouts like “It Ain’t Nothing to Me,” heartfelt ballads like the title track, and character sketches like “Mary’s New Car.”

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Certain Songs #1016: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Don’t Come Around Here No More”

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Album: Southern Accents
Year: 1985

“Hey!”

Unlike the pedestrian “You Got Lucky,” which wed unconvincing synths on the verses to an admittedly anthemic (and yeah, OK, catchy) chorus, the genre-busting “Don’t Come Around Here No More” somehow wed synth-pop, psychedelia, soul and garage rock into something that none of us had ever heard before.

Well, maybe Prince, who was riding high on the cross-pollination of Purple Rain and was just about to release two consecutive albums adding psychedelia to his stew. In fact, Petty even defended “Don’t Come Around Here No More” to his record company by citing “When Doves Cry” as something weird but popular.

Of course, unlike Prince, who made his reputation genre-busting, Tom Petty was savvy enough to do it just this one time, kinda like somebody who dropped acid, had a great time and figured he’d quit while he was ahead.

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