Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Hard Promises"

45 years ago today, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released “Hard Promises” (our copy here). Their 4th album arrived about 19 months after the breakthrough hit LP “Damn the Torpedoes,” a longer gap than was intended, due to a pricing dispute between Tom and MCA Records, which insisted the new album be sold at their new so-called “superstar” list price of $9.98. Tom refused, threatening both withholding the master tapes —or— changing its title to “Eight Ninety-Eight,” representing the industry standard highest LP list price at that time (1981). Petty won that battle. Upon release, it reached #5 Billboard while earning good to excellent reviews. Its singles: “The Waiting” b/w “Nightwatchman” “Something Big” + “A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me).” It also includes “Insider,” a duet with Stevie Nicks. Tom was 30. This was the last Heartbreakers album with their original lineup, as bassist Ron Blair would soon be replaced by Howie Epstein. More in Comments.

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Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Damn the Torpedoes wasn't simply a culmination of Tom Petty's art; it happened to be a huge success, enabling him to call the shots on its successor, Hard Promises. Infamously, he used his first album as a star to challenge the record industry's practice of charging more for A-list artists, demanding that Hard Promises should be listed for less than most records by an artist of his stature, but if that was the only thing notable about the album, it would have disappeared like Long After Dark. Instead, it offered a reaffirmation that Damn the Torpedoes wasn't a fluke. There's not much new on the surface, since it continues the sound of its predecessor, but it's filled with great songwriting, something that's as difficult to achieve as a distinctive sound. The opener, "The Waiting," became the best-known song on the record, but there's no discounting "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)," "Nightwatchman," "Kings Road," "Insider," and "The Criminal Kind," album tracks that would become fan favorites. If Hard Promises doesn't have the sweep of Damn the Torpedoes, that's because its predecessor was blessed with good timing and an unusually strong set of songs. Hard Promises isn't quite so epochal, yet it has a tremendous set of songs and a unified sound that makes it one of Petty's finest records.

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