The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @PerlzFromRobbie for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks!

Into The Great Wide Open can easily get lost in Tom Petty’s deep catalog. It comes in between two of his greatest albums – 1989’s Full Moon Fever and 1994’s Wildflowers. It has all of the characteristics of a “standard” Tom Petty album: a few great singles, some enjoyable album tracks, with the remainder of the album filled out with pleasant, if slight, songs. It’s the kind of Petty album that it was easy to not fully appreciate until Petty was gone. 

 

Petty is one of the great writers of radio rock singles of his time, and the two standouts on this album are some of his best. I’ve heard "Learning to Fly" hundreds of times and still find it to be a moving and affecting song. Petty manages to take the cliché of flying as an act of triumph and ground it in the reality of life (“well the good old days may not return” and “well some say life will beat you down, break your heart, steal your crown"). It’s optimistic, but world weary. The title track (with the Johnny Depp-starring video likely etched into many people’s memories) is another of Petty’s great character sketches of overly ambitious, affable losers being thwarted. 

 

Beyond the singles, the album has several great album cuts that anyone only familiar would Petty’s Greatest Hits should check out. “Kings Highway” is Petty and the Heartbreakers at their chiming, Byrds-like best. “Two Gunslingers” perfectly distills Petty’s great optimism for change and growth. “Out in the Cold” and “Makin’ Some Noise” feature some wonderful and joyful Heartbreakers jamming. “You and I will Meet Again” is a song I’ve gone back to quite a bit in this past year. On the surface it’s about the end of a relationship, but I find it to be a moving song in coping with loss and grief, something we all have had to do plenty of over this past year. 

 

I won’t tell you Into The Great Wide Open is one of Tom Petty’s best records. Describing it as a “standard” Petty album is actually pretty accurate. It’s just that I’ve come to appreciate that a standard Petty record is pretty special.

-- @PerlzFromRobbie