Wildflowers

Wildflowers is the second solo studio album by American musician Tom Petty, released on November 1, 1994, by Warner Bros. Records. It was the first album released by Petty after signing a contract with Warner Bros., where he had recorded as part of the Traveling Wilburys. It was the first of three of his albums produced with Rick Rubin. Wildflowers was very well received by critics upon release and was certified 3× platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 2020, Wildflowers was ranked at number 214 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Production

Wildflowers was credited only to Petty and not to his usual band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers because, in Petty's words, "Rick [Rubin] and I both wanted more freedom than to be strapped into five guys." Nonetheless, the Heartbreakers are featured heavily with the exception of drummer Stan Lynch. Petty auditioned numerous drummers for the album, and eventually chose Steve Ferrone. Petty fired Lynch from the Heartbreakers just before the album's release, and Ferrone officially joined the touring band the following year, and later became a full band member. (Lynch did play on one outtake from Wildflowers, "Something Could Happen").

Petty wrote and recorded numerous songs for the album, and the original plan was to have Wildflowers be a double album, with 25 songs in total. However, Lenny Waronker of Warner Bros. Records felt that the album was too long, and it was decided to reduce the album to 15 tracks. Of the 10 tracks left out, one, "Leave Virginia Alone", notably became a hit single the following year when it was recorded by Rod Stewart, while another four were included, in modified form, in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' next album, the soundtrack album to the 1996 film She's the One. All ten songs, in their original form, were later released in the 2020 edition of Wildflowers, Wildflowers & All the Rest.

Release and reception

Reviewing Wildflowers for USA Today, Edna Gundersen wrote that, in contrast to the "adolescent fantasies" of fellow rockers such as Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones, Petty explored "middle-age reality" on an effective album of "sweet-and-sour heartland rock". Elysa Gardner of Rolling Stone stated that Wildflowers "is not as sonically adventurous ... or as instantly accessible" as previous Petty albums such as Southern Accents (1985) and Full Moon Fever (1989), but its "resolute passion and maturity grow more evident with each listen until the album acquires a haunting, enduring resonance." The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan remarked that "misery suits Petty, and Wildflowers contains some of the best work of his career", while Emma Forrest commented in NME that "an album that helps you sort your thoughts without interrupting them is just as significant as any furious paean to disgruntled youth." In the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot said that Wildflowers, with its "subtle and painterly" sound, showed Petty moving further into musical "ambiguity", "and the music seems newly freed, however subdued it may seem at first."

Although finding it inconsistent, Los Angeles Times journalist Chris Willman observed that Wildflowers "has such an interesting, subtle kind of resonance you may not bemoan the lack of instant anthems." David Browne, however, opined in Entertainment Weekly that Petty had failed to progress musically or lyrically, and music critic Robert Christgau felt that Petty sounded "wilted" and "torpid".

Four singles were released from the album between 1994 and 1995, the most successful of which, "You Don't Know How It Feels", reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Album Rock Tracks chart for one week. It was followed by "You Wreck Me", "It's Good to Be King" and "A Higher Place" which reached Nos. 2, 6, and 12 respectively on the Mainstream Rock chart. The title track, while not released as a single, charted at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart and at No. 3 on the Billboard Lyric Find. and became one of Petty's most streamed and popular songs.

In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine found that Wildflowers is distinguished within Petty's discography by "its casual gait" and extended length, allowing it to capture "the full range of Tom Petty as a singer, songwriter, and rocker." Pitchfork writer Sam Sodomsky said that it was Petty's best solo album, characterized by its "elegantly spare, personal, and intuitive" songs. Rolling Stone listed Wildflowers as the twelfth-best album of the 1990s, and later ranked the record at number 214 on its 2020 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Guitar World placed the album at number 49 in their "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.