Tom Petty You're Gonna Get It CD

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty (vocals, 6- & 12-string guitars, piano); Ron Blair (acoustic guitar, bass); Mike Campbell (6- & 12-string guitars, squeeze box); Benmont Tench (piano, organ); Sran Lynch (drums).
Additional personnel: Noah Shark (percussion); Phil Seymour (background vocals).
Producers: Denny Cordell, Noah Shark, Tom Petty.
Recorded at Shelter Studio, Hollywood, California. Originally released on Shelter (52029). Includes liner notes by Bill Flanagan.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers didn't really knock out their second album -- it was released two years after their debut -- but it sure sounds as if they did. There are some wonderful moments on this record, but it often feels like leftovers from a strong debut, or an album written on the road, especially since the music is simply an extension of the first album. That said, when You're Gonna Get It! works, it devastates. That's not saying that "When the Time Comes" is a masterpiece, even if it's a fine opener, but it does mean that "I Need to Know" and the scathing "Listen to Her Heart" are testaments to how good this band could be when it was focused. If the rest of the album doesn't achieve this level of perfection, that's a signal that they were still finding their footing, but overall it's still a solid record, filled with good performances that are never quite as good as the songs. It's pretty good as it spins, but once it finishes, you remember those two songs at the heart of the record, maybe the opener and closer, which are stronger than the rest of the competent, enjoyable, yet unremarkable roots-rockers that surround them. Not necessarily a transitional effort -- after all, it pretty much mirrors its predecessor -- but a holding pattern that may not suggest the peaks of what's to come, but still delivers a good soundalike of the debut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
After making the world safe for hooky, unpretentious rock & roll with their 1976 debut, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers followed up with an album that further established their claim to the roots-rock throne while sharpening their songcraft to impeccability. The Byrds influence still loomed large on Petty's sonic landscape but no one before or since ever wore it so well. The desperation and urgency of the protagonist in "I Need to Know" are mirrored by the song's surging rhythm and frantic vocal. Petty is in full McGuinn mode for "Listen to Her Heart," an ultimately warm-hearted pop gem where he supports the subject's independence from an unsuitable beau (so what if he probably had a hidden agenda?). A perfect successor to the band's immaculate first album.Uncut (8/02, p.114) - 4 out of 5 - "...Stunning... these freshman works were diamond-hard daggers."