Petty was also dealing with tensions within the Heartbreakers, the band that had accompanied him on his meteoric rise to stardom and elevated his material with their chemistry and soulful playing. The 1987 album Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) was the rare Petty album that felt like it had no reason to exist other than it was next up in the recording cycle. Yet even Petty started to hit some bumps in the road as the decade progressed. Perhaps that was because, a few production flourishes here and there set aside, he never strayed very far from what he did best: writing compact, compelling rock songs that owed something to his influences in the British Invasion and country rock but, because of his authenticity and clear-eyed point of view, always came out sounding distinctly Petty, which was inevitably a good thing. In terms of rock superstars making the transition from the 70’s to the 80’s, nobody did it as smoothly as Tom Petty.
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