133: I Had an Amplifier, Too

133. "Makin' Some Noise" by Tom Petty [iTunes? Yes]

I never much cared for Tom Petty. Oh, sure, some of his songs were a little catchy, but I didn't really like him all that much. To me he was like Jackson Browne, only uglier.

And then the Full Moon Fever album came out. Dang, that's a great album!!! It's easily one of my 25 favorite albums of all time, and probably in my top five albums by anyone not in the HondoJoe Cognitive Triad. (ELO, Billy Joel, and They Might Be Giants.) (Of course, it's probably not a coincidence that Full Moon Fever was produced by and features Jeff Lynne.)

As I've stated earlier, none of the songs from Full Moon Fever made it into the HondoJoe Top 200, although several make the honorable mention list. Petty followed up Full Moon Fever with another album produced by Jeff Lynne, Into the Great Wide Open. It produced the hits "Learning to Fly" and the title track, both of which are very good. The rest of the album just isn't as good as Full Moon Fever, with one exception. This song.

"Makin' Some Noise" has a great guitar riff that is repeated throughout the song. It makes excellent use of the cowbell. (I'm telling you, you're gonna want that cowbell!) And, it's a very good song to work out to.

On this song, Tom Petty is makin' some excellent noise! And, yes, my opinion of Tom Petty has changed over the years. I think pretty highly of him now. (Even if he is still uglier than Jackson Browne.)

COMING UP NEXT: A one-man duet.