Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Angel Dream (She’s The One OST reissue)

I have very mixed feelings about this release. It’s always nice to get new Petty material but I’ll admit to having a huge soft spot for the original She’s the One soundtrack. It came out during a very happy time in my life and listening to it always brings me great pleasure. I’m disappointed that it’s not getting an updated digital release like all the other Petty albums.


I’ll probably get the new Angel Dream release but, yeah, that cover art is pretty wretched. Plus, I really don’t like the fact that the great “Walls (Circus)” has now been banished to a greatest hits collection.

 

I admit that if I never hear “ Free Fallin’” again, I could die a happy man, but the rest of Full Moon Fever is great.
“ A Face in the Crowd” is one of the best things he ever did.

 

I would be surprised if all the worthwhile material has not already been released over the last few years plus the previous few while TP was alive. Reissuing some limited titles such as 'Kiss My Amps' series would be welcome. I suppose we might see expanded editions of other studio albums. I think I'm pretty much burnt out (mentally and financially) on any more material especially Frankenstein versions of existing albums. Other places to spend my money.

 

I liked it better than Wildflowers when it first came out.
Now all the songs from that period just blur together.

 

I agree with @JoeF. On everything he says.

 

I venture to guess Petty had hundreds (or more) songs that were never released...and stored in a vault.....or other
secure place. I think instead of putting out 1 new song on remixed existing albums every few months....perhaps
they could put a completely new album out with all new songs that nobody has ever heard. That would be
something I'd hope they do in the future. I love Petty but I don't need all the same songs/albums I already
have even though they might have a slightly different sound.

 

I wonder if eventually the estate will take existing Tom Petty demos or acoustic performances and have the surviving Heartbreakers flesh them out into full- band arrangements.

I predict it’s only a question of “when.”

 

The songs aren't there. I really don't like any of them.

 

I really hope not. I really can't imagine that the Heartbreakers would be in on that.

 

MONDAY MAILBAG

Thank you for your questions in particular the question regarding the two selections that were included on the OST but are not common to the forthcoming "Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture: She's The One)". While there aren't any plans to my knowledge to issue this particular collection in an expanded edition, the version of "Walls" that has been designated as "Walls (Circus)" was included as part of the 2019 Tom Petty/Heartbreakers collection, "The Best Of Everything". As has been the case with past archival releases, there has been a degree of effort maintained as far allowing each collection to retain it's own identity in that for the most part tracks that are placed upon one collection do not cross-pollinate onto another platform. So for all intents and purposes, "Walls (Circus)" is now exclusive to TBOE. The deviating version of "Angel Dream" I believe has more to do with deviations in the mix rather than being a true alternative performance. As such only one version of the track was selected for the forthcoming recasting of the OST. I should reiterate though that these selections are not being obscured entirely as they will both still be readily available through streaming platforms as the OST will remain accessible through those digital platforms as will the entire contents of the forthcoming archival release "Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture: She's The One)".

To that end, one of the key points of note to make clear as far as this upcoming release is concerned is the re-introduction of this particular collection of Tom Petty/Heartbreakers music to the market is to distinguish it from it's original context as a soundtrack. This is just an estimate on my part but one of the reasons behind this may lie in the fact that back in '96, one of the myriad of issues TP had with this project was that upon release many retailers chose to shunt the album to the soundtrack stacks and in doing so it may have obscured it in the process. As I've also stressed several times in this thread, there were certain creative decisions that were made twenty-five years ago in regards to this collection of music that were decided upon to facilitate the needs of a soundtrack album rather than a proper Tom Petty/Heartbreakers studio release. The inclusion of multiple versions of two selections as well as two bits of score were for all intents and purposes appropriate at the time due to the casting of this album as a soundtrack but would contrastingly be inappropriate if the record was released as a proper Tom Petty/Heartbreakers studio album. The album was also hastily produced as the band was working against a rather firm deadline in order to get the soundtrack to market at the same time as the film [which much to Tom Petty's dismay didn't work out all that well in end] as well as an added demand for additional material in order facilitate a complete soundtrack album.

My take is that none of these decisions would've been made [let alone rushed] if Tom Petty/Heartbreakers had been afforded an appropriate amount of time to bring this particular collection of music to completion as a proper album. Due to the fact that TP is no longer with us, it's impossible to state definitively exactly how he would've gone about addressing the soundtrack but from my vantage point this is as admirable of a job as one could hope to do in re-introducing this particular collection of music to market in that it is now afforded it's own unique identity in the Tom Petty/Heartbreakers catalog, freeing it for all intents and purposes from the constraints that it was saddled with as a soundtrack.

Well yes and no. "Thirteen Days" does emanate from the "Wildflowers" sessions but I think that the general chronology of events that most Tom Petty/Heartbreakers fans have in their minds in trying to delineate a dividing line between "Wildflowers" and the soundtrack has always been a little bit too defined from what I've seen. A lot of the confusion likely emanates from the fact that while spiritually the soundtrack did end up retaining it's own unique identity in the overall Tom Petty/Heartbreakers' catalog both as a separate release and also due to the fact that it identified more so as a soundtrack than a proper studio album, in terms of chronology most of the work that appears on the soundtrack has ties to one degree or another to the "Wildflowers" project.

While it is true that some work was done specifically with the soundtrack in mind [for example there are two versions of "Walls" on the OST because director Edward Burns requested one version for the film's titles and one version for it's credits], the majority of the soundtrack is the result of a significant amount of cross-pollination in that you have material dating back as far as 1993 and as late as 1996. AFAIK the majority of what is on the soundtrack would've ended up as part of the second half of "Wildflowers" if Tom Petty's involvement with the soundtrack hadn't expanded, an experience that he would later describe as "mushrooming on him". You also had the three selections that had been brought to completion in 1993/1994 that were plucked and slotted into the soundtrack. There was another track that Tom Petty/Heartbreakers had worked on with Johnny Cash that they ended up re-cutting with TP on lead vocal. There were a couple of tracks that TP had written for "Wildflowers" but never brought to completion to his satisfaction in 1993/1994. The point being, when TP would later describe the soundtrack to Paul Zollo in 2005 as "a patchwork kind of thing" and "just a bunch of things thrown together", it's not a case of revisionist history. It's pretty much the truth!

In light of that of that when y'all are able to hear this new re-appraisal of the soundtrack, you are going to find that it speaks more of the period of time that all of the music was recorded rather than one specific album. Again I think sometimes fans are understandably sired to the idea there is always this finite line that separates one project from the next but in many instances that just isn't the case. So on "Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture: She's The One)", there is some stuff with Stanley behind the kit, I believe there is a track with Steve Ferrone on drums, there is a bunch of stuff that probably would've ended up on the second half of "Wildflowers" in '96 had that project been brought to completion. So in short, it's a record that celebrates a period of Tom Petty's professional career where he was creating an immense amount of music, much more so than could probably ever be issued to market as a single solitary release.

I can't say I agree, but horses for courses. One reason why the song may sound "out of place" is that it presents with a different sonic presentation than much of the other material found on the "All The Rest" programme. For all intents and purposes, "Somewhere Under Heaven" is a Mike Campbell production with a spectacular Tom Petty vocal atop it. I don't believe they worked it any further than that and it's almost a direct lift from the methodology that the duo used around five years previous with "It'll All Work Out" as I believe that was a similar case where TP had asked his co-captain to produce a recording around a song that he had written, so Mike took it away and just staked out all of the parts onto the tape although there might have been some overdubs done on that one later on. Come to think of it I'm hard-pressed to think of two Tom Petty/Heartbreakers tracks that have such intricate and nuanced guitar work as the two that I just mentioned. Mike Campbell can really spin some masterpieces all on his own because even without the vocal track, those tracks are brilliant!

My best guess is that y'all are probably going to get two singles from "Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture: She's The One)". The title track has already been announced as a forthcoming single via the press release and one of the new tracks should get spotlighted as well at some point. This is in addition to whatever SiriusXM's "Tom Petty Radio" has planned for their listeners as they get exclusives usually between twenty-four to forty-eight hours before content is uploaded to digital media platforms.

Don't worry though, I think y'all are going to enjoy the new stuff. If you dig the content that is on the final disc of "Playback", this stuff would slot in there very nicely.

Not true in the least.

I think it's all-important that these archival set retain some sort of inherent narrative. So if you are going to issue a collection of wholly-unreleased Tom Petty/Heartbreakers material, well what type of narrative are you trying to bring forth with that collection? Are you merely trying to say here is a collection of music that Tom Petty didn't release and have at it? Because that wasn't the way that TP curated his records when he was alive. If anything he was the definition of being both fastidious and meticulous when it came to introducing product to market. Now sometimes he would go back and revisit those decisions down the road but the idea that his records should communicate some type of narrative was of particular importance to him. He wanted his albums to be sequenced in the sense that they had beginnings, middles and endings and communicated something other then here is a slab of wax that we are going to try and sell to y'all. So for example with this new recasting of the soundtrack, the overarching narrative is to take a record that TP was never wholly comfortable with in terms of it's identification of being a soundtrack and put a different spin on it. Some Tom Petty/Heartbreakers fans will be receptive to that, while others won't be and that is understandable regardless as to which camp you find yourself in. I believe it was Benmont Tench who mentioned when they were working on "An American Treasure", a few years back that one of the suggestions that was brought forth was to put together a collection of entirely unreleased content but they decided to put together a collection that spotlighted TP as a songwriter instead. From where I stand that was a wise move and seems to be the overall intention behind all of the archival projects thus far is to spotlight this incredible gift that Tom Petty had for songwriting. That has really been where it's at because I think TP once said if you don't have a good song, then nothing else is going to fly. The song is where it begins and ends.

 

Yes, it was the "sonic presentation" that I had in mind when I said "Somewhere Under Heaven" didn't fit with the rest of the music from that era, Wildflowers and She's the One.

 

Absolutely fascinating! Are you able shed some light on these '93 era tracks, am I right in thinking these are within the small batch of 'new' tracks here, outside of Thirteen Days, which we know was being cast intentionally in the 'Wildflowers' net in '94?

 

The material from '93/'94 which I referenced in regards to the OST, you would likely already be very much familiar with as they would be inclusive of "Hung Up And Overdue" [June, 1993] and then "Hope You Never" and "California" [Spring, 1994]. In regards to the forthcoming issue, "Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture: She's The One)", I believe there is one track that dates back as early as the summer of 1992 and the rest of the content goes forth from there.

 

Um... it sounds like he was leaning towards this back in 2015 when She's The One didn't get remastered with all the others...

But it's impossible for us to say what he would or would not have approved of, since he ain't here to ask..

 

Oh, my mistake, I assumed you were referring to the new LP in your original comment! Will the '92 track be Thirteen Days, or is it one of the other two new songs that has it's origins in said year?

 

I'm not going to do a deep dive into that at this point out of respect for the professional writers who may be chiming in on this forthcoming release as we approach closer to release date [or dates in this case]. I have a lot of time for the folks who toil in those vineyards and in my opinion they should have the exclusives regarding any specific reveals in terms of content because reporting on such is part and parcel of the business of their work. So for the time being, I'm going to leave that end of the narrative to those folks.

 

Not a problem, I assumed that was likely the case, but I felt getting some of the discussion going was a good move. Looking forward to it!

 

I understand. What happens is that fans who own all TP CDs will already have 99% of the contents in "The Best Of Everything" and will probably pass on it (or buy it for 1 or 2 songs).
I guess I am bit burned out on buying a cd for 1 or 2 songs I don't have and it would be nice to get a version of the new cd with a second disc including "Walls (Circus)", the other Angel Dream and perhaps a few more demos and outtakes that didn't make the Wildflowers 5 cd set. That way, we can toss the old OST for "She's The One" in the trash.

 

THIS !!!!

This guy gets it !



Now, if only the TP people could get it in their head.

 

I know it would never happen, but I'd be in for an all unreleased tracks box set as well.

I know throwing the extra unreleased track or two on a compilation has been a trend for over 50 years, and if I love the artists music I'm going to buy it. However, it doesn't mean I'm a fan of the method.

 

But with the new release to be a remix, many wouldn’t be so fast to toss.

 

Well, I guess it depends on how radical the remix is. If the difference is too slight I'd see no reason to keep the original OST.

 

Looking forward to this high res digital release and hopefully a blu-ray of the new Wildflowers documentary this fall!

 

With the latter hopefully also including the Atmos mix of Wildflowers!

 

I would love a 5.1 mix of Wildflowers. A blu-ray with a surround sound mix of Wildflowers would have made the deluxe set even more perfect.