Anthology: Through The Years

Great price and fast shipping.

Here I am once again in my home office, writing a review. As usual, I have music playing in the background. This time it's “Anthology: Through the Years” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Originally released in 2000 on the MCA label, this outstanding 2-CD set album contains 34 of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ best-known and most popular songs recorded from 1976 through 1993.“Anthology: Through the Years” certainly ranks as one of my five favorite and most frequently played albums. Each of the two CDs runs well over 60 minutes in length. The songs appear to be arranged roughly in chronological order. All are digitally remastered, and many of the songs are longer album versions.Disc 1 – runs to nearly 70 minutes, and starts right off with a pair of Petty’s best-known and most popular songs: “Breakdown” and “American Girl.” The 17 tracks on this disc also include the iconic “heartland” rocker’s songs, “I Need to Know,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” a duet with fellow rock icon Stevie Nicks.Disc 2 – runs close to 70 minutes as well. It’s perhaps not quite as strong Disc 1, but it’s certainly excellent. Here can be heard Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ classic “Rebels,” “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” “Free Fallin’ ”, and 14 other of Petty’s rock masterworks.As strong as the line-up of songs on “Anthology: Through the Years” is, this 2-CD set album is also technically excellent. The entire album has been digitally remastered, and the results are outstanding to my ears. The sound is uniformly crisp and and clear; all frequencies - the highs of Tom Petty and Mike Campbell’s lead guitars and Benmont Tench’s keyboards, the deep pulsations of Howie Epstein and Ron Blair’s basses, and the relentless tattoo of Stan Lynch’s drums - are heard clearly and distinctly. The reproduction of all vocals is especially noteworthy.“Anthology: Through the Years” is an excellent musical compendium of what was once called “heartland rock,” and is now more commonly known as “classic rock.” It is sheer rock and roll entertainment from start to finish. I think it's probably the best collection of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ greatest songs, masterfully performed and brilliantly engineered. Highly recommended.

As others have stated this is a can't go wrong collection of music but if your not a huge fan then the MCA greatest hits is just as sufficient. Had This been considered just a Tom Petty Anthology it could have been a much stronger 2 disk set including classics from the Traveling Willbury's & Solo work & why not as they added non Heartbreakers song anyway. Song you will miss the most is probably "You Don't know how it feels", I could name others but that seems to be the one more casual T.P. fans would miss. I strongly agree with other reviewers about picking up wild flowers as a addition to this Anthology. At one time I had owned all of T.P. & Heartbreakers work on cassett & if you don't own any Tom Petty I would strongly recommend this fuller 2 disc set over the MCA Greatest hits How ever if you all ready own MCA's Greatest hits,& are not a purest looking for that one song you can't find you may want two pass. Tom Petty is one of those artist that if you really love him you might as well look for everything from "The Mudruckers" & "Traveling Whilbury's" & his solo works. Along with his prolific work with the Heartbreaker's. And this endeavor is a costly project. But as far as sound quality if your trying to chose between Greatest Hits & Anthology go with Anthology And build from there. Even a purest would not be able to collect all the T.P. they wanted without duplicating songs. Maybe some day their will be the definitive collection covering All of T.P.'s work & being so prolific this will probably cost in the hundreds of dollars and still be worth owning to those that are big Tom Petty fans as the man is basically a living legend!

I disliked the soft paper cover on the CD package but the music is tops and this covers all of his best songswithout a doubt.If you like the Heartbreakers,this is all you really need to enjoy their spectrumof hits!!

I've been listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ever since they hit the radio airwaves back in the late seventies. I remember going to neighboorhood party's during the summer of 1978 (I was in Junior High) and Refugee was in the Top 40, gettin' blasted through the speakers.Subsequently, over the years, I have purchased every one of Tom's and the Boy's cd's. I still consider myself just a casual fan. I simply like the hits off each cd, with a few extras thrown in by personal taste. Anyway, the majority of these discs are from the early '90's. Not the best sound quality. And, it takes some time and effort to load each disc in my itunes and pick just the songs that I want. The solution?Buy this 2-disc Anthology. It's a great price. It's sounds good. And all your favorite Petty tunes are right there, conveniently in one place, uh...or two. I dropped them into my iPod, and haven't looked back since.Now all I have to do is get The Last DJ and The Highway Companion, and I'm done.

I've been a Tom Patty & Heartbreakers fan for decades, and had several of their albums in cassette format. Never got around to update my music list until recently when I was given an I-Pod. I was not interested in having to buy all of thier albums in CD format and this compilation has almost everything that you'd want. I'd wished thought that they included some songs from the "She's the One" Soundtrack as well as a few othert songs that had already been released, which is why I gave this 4 stars and not 5. If I had the option I'd go as far as giving this 4.5 stars because it's almost complete and they really did cram a lot of music in these 2 CD's. Nicely presented, sound quality is great. Very happy with this collection.

Great songs

Great cd and great seller