An American Treasure

Tom Petty’s music has been obsessively compiled, assessed, and summarized. If you want the full story, there’s Peter Bogdanovich’s four-hour documentary, Runnin’ Down a Dream. If you’re interested in a grittier account, try Warren Zanes’ epic biography, Petty. Here for the music? In 1995, Petty mined his vaults with Playback, a comprehensive collection filled with singles, deep cuts, and outtakes. That set arrived just two years after his 12-times platinum Greatest Hits, expanded in 2000 for the immersive Anthology: Through the Years. And befitting a bandleader who many would argue lit up the stage more naturally than the studio, there’s 2009’s four-disc Live Anthology, collecting highlights from three decades on the road.

Petty’s legacy has been sustained through such retrospectives, arguably more than any other artist of the classic rock era. His output was so consistent for so long that no single studio record could accurately frame the breadth and depth of his catalog. Following his death last fall, it was both telling and touching to hear famous fans covering songs from across his career, whether it was the National dusting off a late-career weeper, Phoebe Bridgers meditating on a 1987 deep cut, Bob Dylan putting his spin on a singalong strummer, or Miley Cyrus closing her eyes and belting out a wistful lullaby. While compilations can feel like cash grabs or contractual obligations, Petty’s music invites this type of listening. His songs form their own universe, primed for diving in and finding your own little corner.

So An American Treasure—a new career-spanning collection and the first posthumous release from the Petty estate—is not without precedent, making its ability to say something new even more impressive. No Tom Petty collection has ever felt so thoughtful or complete. With a tracklist selected by those closest to him—his wife, Dana; daughter, Adria; two Heartbreakers bandmates, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench; and his studio collaborator Ryan Ulyate—it’s the rare career survey that makes you reconsider the work it collects. It is filled with love, vulnerable in a way it might not have been had Petty himself overseen it.