Sam Smith has been having a rough time of it this month, and part of the reason is that “Stay With Me,” Smith’s breakout hit from last year, turns out to be a little too close for comfort to Tom Petty’s 1989 song “I Won’t Back Down.” Earlier this week, the news came out that [...

"These things can happen," says Petty

As you might’ve heard, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers scored their first #1 album this year, with Hypnotic Eye. Thing is, it’s merely pretty good in the grand scheme of the Petty canon. It garnered a lot of positive of reviews, but when it comes down to it, the fact that Petty just now got [...]

At a Friday night show in Moline, Illinois, Pearl Jam randomly decided to play their 1996 album No Code in full. (They also played a new song called “Moline.”) Last night, playing Milwaukee’s BMO Harris Bradley Center, the band busted out another superfan treat, playing all of 1998′s Yield in the middle of...

If so-called rockists ever decide to secede and form their own nation, Tom Petty is a shoo-in for the country’s first presidential nominee. Petty’s music advances the notion of rock and roll as utopian ideal, and the tremendous success of his band Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers proves that populism is not necessarily the byp...