Wildflowers & All The Rest

One of the many things I have come to love about being a Tom Petty in recent years, it's the release of extensive box-sets with lots of unreleased material and live cuts. My personal favourite releases have been the extensive four disc collections, Live Anthology and the excellent An American Treasure. Now with the release of Wildflowers & All The Rest, it seems that favourites list has just got longer. For those that do not know, Wildflowers was released all the way back in 1994. Despite the fact that it features the majority of The Heartbreakers, the album is considered a Tom Petty solo album. The record was released through Warner Bros and features production from Rick "murderer of music" Rubin, Mike Campbell and Petty himself. The album was a quick success and spawned a number of hit singles. It was originally intended to be a twenty five track album but was cut down due to concerns with the album length. This re-release features all the intended tracks (the original fifteen track album and a ten track second disc), a selection of home recorded demos and a disc of live material. The original Wildflowers album is by far my favourite Tom Petty album. The album contains some great tunes like You Don't Know How It Feels, You Wreck Me and the album title track. It's made every bit sweeter by the excellent production and superb engineering. Even though the sound is all very clear and a little bit on the sterile side, the album has a raw feeling that benefits the music greatly. It also has quite a wide dynamic range, still sounding great all these years later. This new copy is no different. In fact, I reckon the first disc is simply a repressing of the original. The second disc is "All The Rest", the ten tracks that were cut before the album was originally released. Honestly, if this is the standard of the filler tracks, I think a double album would have went down very well. The music is technically more of the same but these are all very good songs. The sound throughout the disc is very consistent and fits with the original Wildflowers album very well. The production for a couple of tracks is a little different, not quite as sharp as the main album but by no means is this a gripe or an issue. It's a great sounding disc and could have been an actual album release as it is. The Home Recordings disc is a selection of demos etc, made up of raw recordings of Wildflower album tracks etc. This is a great disc and it's easily the most interesting thing here. Hearing these songs stripped down to their bare minimum is quite something. It really makes you appreciate just how good these songs were before they were built up in the studio. The following live disc is also a beauty. The recordings are all clear, sharp and have been very well produced. It sounds just as good as the Live Anthology release and makes for a great end to this four disc collection. The packaging for Wildflowers & All The Rest is the same kind of packaging as An American Treasure. I personally bought the deluxe CD release and it comes in a hardback mini book. Each CD is stored in its own thick cardboard sleeves and it is accompanied by a booklet full of cool notes etc. Everything looks great, it feels sturdy and there appears to be no issues here. It's a fantastic looking product and I hope that we see more of these deluxe collections in the future. If you're a fan, don't even doubt it. This is a must have and is an absolute steal for £35.

In short, Wildflowers is Tom Petty’s finest work.....and now 28 years later, all the recordings made at the time have been made available.....as ‘All The Rest’....The story goes that TP wanted to release a double album but the record company declined leaving 10 recordings out from the originally released CD back in 1992....A few weeks ago on release day I purchased the 3 vinyl set and it sounds amazing, I then went about looking at the best way to get hold of the rest of the recordings and decided on this 4 CD deluxe edition which in addition to the album and the ‘All The Rest’ recordings, gives you Tom’s solo home recordings and live versions making this a 54 track set....it also comes with an excellent booklet providing detailed track by track commentary mainly from producer Rick Rubin, Heartbreakers band members Mike Campbell ,Steve Ferrone and Benmont Tench and engineer and co-producer Ryan Ulyate.....It is a fantastic product and I would hope that we get to more deluxe editions in the future....Even for those who are only aware of Tom through his greatest hits, this set is a steal at the price.....

I first bought Wildflowers on cassette when it came out and later bought the CD. I have always rated it Petty's strongest 'mature period' album, with four of Petty's strongest ever tracks - Wildflowers, You Wreck Me, Crawling Back to You and It's Good to be King - supported by 11 other good to excellent tracks. This 4CD release includes, as CD2, the 10 further tracks Petty had considered including at the time on a double CD. These 10 tracks are again good to excellent: the four standouts being Leave Virginia Alone,. Confusion Wheel, California and Hung Up and Overdue. The CD2 tracks are generally more introspective and melancholic than parts of CD1, being written at a time Petty's first marriage was on the rocks. CD3 contains home recordings by Petty on guitar, piano and bass of 15 tracks (mainly tracks from CD1). Atypically for an archive release, these home recordings appear to be almost fully finished, though stripped down, versions of the originally released tracks. This goes to highlight Petty's song crafting skills and means that CD3 can be played repeatedly as an alternative unplugged version of the album, rather than a curio for infrequent listening. For example, Crawling Back To You is equally impressive in its fully produced (on CD1), unplugged (on CD3) and live (on CD4) versions. CD$, Wildflowers Live, extends to 74 minutes and its tracks have been carefully selected from various performances over a 20 year period from the early 1990s. The 11 minute version of It's Good to Be King is particularly impressive, with outstanding guitar and keyboards by Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, who curated the selections. CD4 also contains two obscure Petty songs, Drivin' Down to Georgia (a Heartbreakers jam) and Girl on LSD (a humorous track in the vein of Johnny Cash). The box set is accompanied by a leaflet with information on each song, including comments by Campbell, Tench and CD1 producer Rick Rubin. With four great CDs, this is an excellent addition to the Petty Catalogue,

Love Tom Petty's work and it's been great to finally get the full Wildflowers package as Petty wanted it to be released. In addition to the studio albums we get a live cd and another of demos around the sessions. In addition we also get a little booklet. Overall good value for a nice package of some of Petty's best work. If you like Petty and the original Wildflowers, you'll love this.

happy

worth every penny for any fan of the late great tom petty, well packaged with different versions of songs and love the more basic home recordings, feel as though your sitting in same room as tom plays you the songs on his own, love it

Excellent quality sound

Fabulous box set, Wildflowers Live cd is great. If you like Tom Petty you will love this. Would recommend

Wildflowers fue el disco que se vendió más rápido y consiguió triple platino en 1994. Dos millones de copias en un par de meses. Una maravilla de álbum y ahora en vinilo y con canciones extras. 3 discos garantizados

En mycket fin Lp-box med Tom Petty, och som har hög kvalité. Medföljande häfte har utförlig information om låtarna och annat. Pressningen av skivorna är av högsta klass, plana och i princip inget knaster på någon skiva. Rekommenderas!!!!

Watched a documentary on the recording of the "Wildflowers" CD and found out that quite a few more songs were recorded than made the release. Found myself wondering if those songs could be found somewhere and came across this special release that has them. Best decision ever! This deluxe release is totally worth the money to anyone considering him- or herself a true Tom Petty fan.

Tom Petty - Wildflowers & All The Rest (Deluxe Edition) – 16.10.20 – Erst VÖ: 1.11.1994 Es dürfte wohl allgemein bekannt sein, dass Tom Petty bei den Sessions zu WILDFLOWERS mehr Songs aufnahm, als letztendlich aufs Album kamen. Diese Songs wurden allerdings nie veröffentlicht. Bis jetzt: 26 Jahre später und drei Jahre nach dem Tod der Rocklegende (R.I.P.) erscheint endlich das Album WILDFLOWERS & ALL THE REST. Neben den neuen Albumtracks warten Demos, Livemitschnitte und mehr. Bevor ich auf die Box eingehe noch vorab ein paar Infos zum damaligen Album: WILDFLOWERS war Pettys zweites Solo Album (nach FULL MOON FEVER 1989) und es war das erste Album für Warner Music, dem Label, wo Petty schon mit den THE TRAVELING WILLBURYS Alben aufnahm. Es ist auch das erste von drei Alben welches Rick Rubin für Petty produzierte. Erstaunlich ist, dass diese beiden Solo-Werke (FULL MOON FEVER und WILDFLOWERS) weitaus erfolgreicher waren als die Alben unter dem Bandbanner „Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers“. WILDFLOWERS erreichte in den Staaten 3x Platin und das nur nach 9 Monaten. Es war eines der am „schnellsten“ verkauften Alben überhaupt. Das bekannteste Stück war die Single YOU DON’T KNOW HOW IT FEELS, welche auf Platz 13 der US-Single Charts kletterte. Es war Pettys letzte erfolgreiche Single in den TOP 40 der US Single Charts. Obwohl das ein Solo Album ist wurden die Songs von der regulären Band, bis auf den Drummer, aufgenommen. Petty und Rubin wollten mehr künstlerische Freiheit ohne Einbindung der Band haben und entschieden sich für ein Solo-Album. Insgesamt wurden 25 Songs aufgenommen. WILDFLOWERS hat in vielerlei Hinsicht Toms künstlerisches Leben verändert, während eine tiefgreifende persönliche Krise die Geschichten und emotionalen Antriebe in seinen Songs beeinflusste. So wurden die 25 Songs aufgenommen. Petty wollte ein Doppel-Album herausbringen. Doch die Plattenfirma war von dieser Idee wenig begeistert und riet davon ab. So wurden nur 15 Songs für das Album ausgewählt. Die Idee „ALL THE REST“ von WILDFLOWERS zu veröffentlichen hatte Tom Petty noch zu Lebzeiten. Bereits 2014 führte Petty in einem Interview mit dem Rolling Stone seine Pläne für den Re-Issue aus: „Ich brach zu etwas anderem durch. Mein Privatleben stürzte ein und das warf mich für eine Weile aus der Bahn. Doch während der Aufnahmen war ich voll und ganz bei mir“. 2016 brachte er den Wunsch zum Ausdruck, die WILDFLOWERS-Veröffentlichung mit einer Tour zu begleiten. Petty hatte stets vorgehabt, die zweite Hälfte des Albums zu veröffentlichen. Eine Sammlung namens ALL THE REST mit zehn Songs aus den WILDFLOWERS-Recording-Sessions, die nicht auf der Albumversion zu finden waren, und fünf unveröffentlichten Tracks (andere Versionen von vier Songs, die 1996 auf dem Soundtrack des Films „She’s The One“ erschienen sind). Nun erscheint WILDFLOWERS als stark erweiterte Neuauflage, mit zusätzlichem Material. Toms Vision des Projektes wird Realität dank der Hingabe seiner liebenden Familie, Bandmitglieder und Kreativpartner, die dabei halfen, viele bisher ungehörte Juwelen zutage zu fördern. Die Sammlung wurde kuratiert von Toms Töchtern Adria und Annakim Petty und seiner Frau Dana Petty sowie Mike Campbell und Benmont Tench von den Heartbreakers. Als Co-Produzent agierte Toms langjähriger Toningenieur und Co-Produzent Ryan Ulyate. So wird Toms bis heute emotional entwaffnendsten Album WILDFLOWERS besonders gewürdigt und ist endlich so erhältlich, wie es sich Tom Petty vorstellte und darüber hinaus. WILDFLOWERS & ALL THE REST gibt es wie folgt: • Standard 2CD/3 LP Set Disc 1: Wildflowers Disc 2: All The Rest LP 1 und 2: Wildflowers LP 3: All The Rest • Deluxe Edition: ein 4-CD oder 7-LP Set, das 54 Tracks, acht unveröffentlichte Songs und 24 unveröffentlichte Versionen enthält. Die 4-CD enthält die Einleitung von Rick Rubin, Track-by-Track für alle Songs auf diesem Format, die 7-LP enthält außerdem das Essay von David Fricke und Lyrics zu allen Songs auf Wildflowers und All The Rest. Es sind keine Lyrics bei den 4CD-Set dabei! Disc 1: Wildflowers Disc 2: All The Rest Disc 3: Home Recordings/Demos (15 Tracks – drei unveröffentlichte Songs; 12 unveröffentlichte Versionen; die Solo-Demos bieten einen intimen Einblick in Toms Songwriting-Prozess, bei dem er sämtliche Instrumente spielt und seine Lyrics abändert, während er daran arbeitet). Disc 4: Wildflowers Live (14 Tracks – 12 unveröffentlichte Versionen; zwei zuvor nur an den Fan Club verbreitet; aufgenommen bei unterschiedlichen Touren zwischen 1995 und 2017 LP 1 und 2: Wildflowers LP 3: All The Rest LP 4 und 5: Home Recordings/Demos LP 6 und 7: Wildflowers Live Die Deluxe Edition kostet hier bei Amazon 44,99€ und bietet das beste Preis- Leistungsverhältnis. Leider ist kein AutoRip dabei. • Super Deluxe Edition Die „Super Deluxe Edition“ ist ein Direct to Consumer Limited Edition Set, das FINDING WILDFLOWERS enthält. 16 Studioaufnahmen mit alternativen Takes von WILDFLOWERS-Songs, während Tom, die Bandmitglieder und Rubin am finalen Album schliffen. Diese Version habe ich auf der Homepage von Warnermusic gefunden, die dort für 149$ Dollar angeboten wird. Die 5-te CD FINDING WILDFLOWERS ist, unabhängig des Versandes aus Amerika, für mich viel zu teuer, auch wenn ich es mir leisten könnte. Darüber hinaus enthält diese Variante neben dem Inhalt der regulären Deluxe-Edition auch noch ein Hardcover-Buch, einen Aufnäher des Wildflowers-Logos, Stickers des Wildflowers-Logos, ein Replikat des „Dogs with Wings” Tourprogramms, handgeschriebene 4-Song-Lyric-Nachdrucke in einem Umschlag aus Pergamentpapier, eine Lithografie mit neuer und exklusiver Kunst von Blaze Ben Brooks für den Song „Only A Broken Heart” und ein (nummeriertes) Echtheitszertifikat. Die Editionen enthalten in sämtlichen Formaten das oben erwähnte Essay von David Fricke: „Somewhere You Feel Free: Tom Petty’s Road to Wildflower“. Außerdem ein ausführliches Track-by-Track von Jaan Uhelszki mit Beiträgen von Rubin, Ulyate, Tontechniker Jim Scott, Heartbreakers Live-Mixing-Techniker Robert Scovill und den Heartbreakers Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench und Steve Ferrone. Lyrics sind nicht überall dabei. Ich habe mir die Deluxe Edition gegönnt. Kostet zwar knapp 45€ (der Download der 54 Songs gute 34€). Die 2-CD kostet 19€. Der Mehrpreis für zwei weitere Discs und das Hardcover-Case in Buchform ist aus meiner Sicht absolut in Ordnung. Schade nur, dass die Texte bei dieser Version nicht enthalten sind. Auch ohne Texte finde ich das-4CD Set sehr gut gelungen. Disc 3 und Disc 4 machen diese Phase des Schaffens von Tom Petty zusätzlich interessant. So stelle ich mir „Wiederveröffentlichungen“ vor, mit einem erheblichen Mehrwert zur ursprünglichen Ausgabe und nicht nur der x.te Remasteraufguss. Schade auch, dass die Super Deluxe Edition umständlich zu erwerben und überteuert ist. Mir machen alle CD’s richtig Spaß und diese laufen seit zwei Tagen in Heavy Rotation. Tom Petty hatte ich jetzt schon eine lange Zeitlang nicht mehr gehört. Das wird sich jetzt wieder ändern. Die Musik ist einfach zeitlos und sensationell. WILDFLOWERS & ALL THE REST hört sich auch in dieser Zusammenstellung wie eine Einheit an. Auch ohne Texte glatte 6 Sterne für dieses geile Gesamtpaket.

If these reviews happen to become mixed together, I am reviewing the 4CD version here. I am a huge fan of the music of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, but even so I was skeptical of buying this set. Because despite "Wildflowers" being the favorite album of many TP&HB fans, I've always felt it was one of his/their lesser albums (just my personal taste). Even so, I took a chance here and I'm very glad I did. Disc 1: Wildflowers. Clearly this album connects strongly with a lot of people. It's far more subdued than the Damn The Torpedoes era, and while DTT is awesome and my favorite album from Petty, there's nothing wrong with him going in a more acoustic and subdued direction. I do happen to prefer the more rocking and defiant Tom Petty of the prior albums, but he often puts out some great work (along with the band that essentially is The Heartbreakers, minus Stan Lynch). I miss Lynch's creative drumming but replacement Steve Ferrone is an excellent drummer and suited for these songs. There are 15 songs here, some people feel every one is perfect, an overall masterpiece. I happen to only like 7 or 8 which is a low percentage for a Tom Petty album (usually I'll like 80-100% of the tracks on a Petty album), but if you already love the album I think you'll be happy with the remastering. At any rate, this is the same album you know, but remastered in even better quality than before, which wasn't ever bad sonically in the first place. Disc 2: All the rest Quite an interesting listen. It starts out with "Something Could Happen", very much in the style of the rest of Wildflowers, but a little more positive/optimistic in my mind than much of the original WF album. And perhaps the best part for long-time Heartbreakers fans is that this one has Stan Lynch on drums. The band's take on "Leave Virginia Alone" is quite good, a song famously covered by Rod Stewart but written by Tom Petty for this album, then shelved. I like most of the rest of the tracks, some of which appeared on the album "She's the One", but these are from the Wildflowers sessions, different versions than the STO album - though not sounding a great deal different than on STO. Ringo Starr even drums on "Hung Up and Overdue", as he does on the STO version. Of the "new" songs here, "Confusion Wheel" and "Somewhere Under Heaven" I found to be especially good. Disc 3: Home Recordings These are mostly Tom's own demos, though they sound more complete than most demo tracks. There's a very intimate and immediate sound to Tom's voice here, and the fact that he's deceased makes hearing them all the more poignant now. Hearing his voice now on these recordings may bring you nearly to tears, but those are also tears of joy because it's like you are hearing him now, recordings that you thought were lost. On a few of the tracks Tom's voice sounds rough/ragged, and those aren't as good as the others. But most of them sound great, Tom in very good voice. A few of the lyrics jump around from song to song, with lyrics from one demo eventually moved to a different song on the album. "Crawling Back to You" is particularly interesting, though I believe Tom has the lyric as "Coming Back to You" at this point in the song's development. Also, the first song on this disc, "There Goes Angela (Dream Away)" is terrific and very memorable, almost haunting in a good way. Subdued in style, but really it's hard to see this being left off the original album; it's another essential Tom Petty track and fits with the WF album musically. Disc 4: Wildflowers Live This is a disc I thought would be uninteresting, but I was completely wrong. I've always enjoyed this band live, but I already had numerous live recordings of them, all of the official releases (such as "Live Anthology") and then some. What more could this live disc offer? Well a lot. These are not just songs from the Wildflowers tour, in fact only one of the tracks is from that (1995) tour. The songs are from various tours, all the way up through the 2017 tour. And yet somehow they manage to make this sound like it's all from a single concert, including some banter from Tom. Remarkable, and not to be missed. The booklet that comes with it is of high construction quality, though the text and photos are nothing remarkable IMO. The discs are tightly held in the sleeves, possibly they could become damaged when taking them out, so you might want to house them separately from the booklet, but it works if you are careful. All in all this set is essential to die-hard TP&HB fans, if you can spare the roughly $40 price. EDIT - Also don't miss the new release "Finding Wildflowers", which was the 5th CD of the super-deluxe set, and is now available to everyone as a single CD. Finding Wildflowers has alternate takes of many of the songs on WF, including six tracks with Stan Lynch on drums, two tracks with Kenny Aronoff on drums, and one track with Ringo Starr on drums. Plus some alternate tracks with Steve Ferrone on drums. It's not just the drumming that is different than the "original album" version, but the pace, instrumentation, and in some cases the lyrics. Plus there are some interesting spoken introductions to these songs by Tom Petty himself. Definitely worth getting if you are getting the 4 CD set, might as well go for the 5th, if you can afford another $15.