Farewell, Tom Petty

He wasn't revolutionary like The Clash, innovative like Patti Smith, or ironic like Cheap Trick. Tom Petty just got by on writing rock solid songs and performing them with a rock solid band. His talent was such that albums such as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Damn the Torpedoes, and Hard Promises didn't need to shake things up to still stand out among the great albums of the seventies and eighties. And he was always  so resolved in his refusal to follow trends that he ended up seeming oddly hip, as cool as any of the new wavers and as edgy as any of the punks. The timelessness of his music was certainly a factor in the length of his career, which left most of the new wavers and punks in the dated dust. Sadly, that career came to an end last night. Tom Petty has died of cardiac arrest at the mere age of 66. Rock & Roll will never be quite as cool again.