[.ca] Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Playback (1995)

indiana rock:
tom petty once said he wants people to picture the cornfields and beautiful countryside of indiana in his music and kids being in love for the first time and highschool and all the things he grewup with and when u hear this dvd you do tom pettys not about looks or singing bublegum songs like the beatles he sings with his heart and soul and with sadness and pain of a bluesman but with the message of hope that the regular guy can win in the end tom petty rules buy this dvd is got alotta good songs though it coulda been better

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Playback":
"Video Killed the Radio Star" was the name of the first video ever played on MTV. Twenty years later we know that this bold prediction is not true. Music videos, which took the recording industry by storm and created a whole new entertainment medium are today, slowly sinking into obscurity. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Playback" is a case in point. Few would argue with the quality of the music. Opening with a 1979 cut of "Here Comes My Girl" and closing with 1993's "Mary Janes's Last Dance", this DVD evolves chronologically through some of the great pop songs of the past twenty-five years. As a big Tom Petty fan, It's hard to be unbiased. I like every cut on the DVD. In fact, I love most of them! After a single viewing of this disk, anyone born after 1950 will appreciate the way that this southern rocker from the 70's grows into one of the great songwriters and performers of the 80's and 90's. The videos themselves are a different story. They range in quality from the genius, "Don't Come Around Here No More", to the atrocious, "Runnin' Down A Dream". Perhaps I'm getting old, but in seems that visual stimulation does nothing to enhance the music. What these videos do however, is tell the story of why MTV and the music video industry are in decline. The early offerings from the disk are from the late '70's and early '80's and they are great! They include concert style cuts and simple visuals. ...Then this new art form got ahead of itself. The mid '80's had great Petty songs, but the video producers seemed to be in a race to see who could be the most abstract and absurd. They attempt to tell stories that have nothing to do with the music. In a mater of four or five years the great MTV phenomenon evolved into a series of two or three second visual bytes that are hard on the senses and distract from the very song that they are meant to enhance. ...Darwin was wrong. At least when it comes to music videos, evolution is not always for the better. If you like Tom Petty, buy this DVD! But of course, you already knew that. If on the other hand, you are wondering what ever happened to music videos, rent this DVD and see how poor visual effects can hurt great music and be a real Heartbreaker. John Amback February 14, 2003

This Video needs more Music Videos:
This film is a good DVD all the videos are in full-length form and the director kept the minue nice and simple making it elidgible for any idiot. However the producer of this film forgot some of petty's hit videos like "Letting you go", "American Girl", "Walls", "It's Good To Be King" and many more. This DVD gets 3 stars, because I like the format and all of the videos are in full-length form, but if I were to produce this DVD since it came out in the year 2001, I would feature a video the the hit Petty song "The Last DJ" Along with every single one of his other hit music videos. By: Ted Kissel

I like this a lot, but...:
This is a really great video, with really great songs, but when you watch a whole lot of Tom Petty, and look past that twinkle in his eye and the humor, and the macho rock n roll, you find that he's lacking a certain warmth. He's good at being mad. He's good at being sardonic. But. It's hard to connect to the cockles of his heart. He's a bit cool and a bit remote and he doesn't let you into his ribs, and into his brain and bones, all the way. Not like Lennon and McCartney (in their prime), or Morrisson, did. Petty is clever, amusing, fun, interesting and he's got a lot of tricks. But. There's not a lot of poetry in what he does and he's a bit of a sphinx. Is he a sphinx without a secret though?

High Dosage for Seasoned Fans:
These videos bring a complementary visual element to what is otherwise a pretty static-looking set of CD inserts and old record album covers. On Video, Petty seems to go off in somewhat zany, cartoonish directions--moreso than Petty live in concert. So these make a nice strand of creative work Petty can leave behind, as he's not getting any younger. If the question is "What is it about Tom Petty that makes him so great?" then this DVD is a big part of the answer.