Tom Petty Archives

The 50 Best Cover Songs of 2024

Posted by Staff at 9:00 am 4 Responses »

Dec 202024

Follow all our Best of 2024 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

Welcome to the 50 Best Tom Petty Covers of 2024!

We kid, of course. But for whatever reason, this year’s big trend in covers was: Tom Petty. At one point there were something like 20 Petty covers on our longlist. Many came from two all-star tribute albums that dropped, entirely coincidentally, the same year (they both made our Best Albums list). We narrowed it down, of course. Three Petty covers ended up in this Top 50, one not even from those albums. Then, just this week, another high-profile Petty cover dropped: Snoop and Jelly Roll reworking “Last Dance for Mary Jane”! Suffice to say that one wouldn’t have been a contender even if it hadn’t arrived too late.

That was the big surprise trend in 2024 covers. The less-surprising trend you could have called from a mile out: The new wave of young pop divas—Chappell, Sabrina, Charli—got covered a lot. We could have done an entire 50-song list of their covers, too (the “Good Luck Babe”s alone!). But, if we had, we would have missed out on gospel R.E.M. and country The Weeknd and electropop Mott the Hoople and soul Green Day and… you know what, just read the list.

(Moo-chas gracias and Deng-ke schoen to Hope Silverman for this year’s tiny-hippo art.)

The Best Cover and Tribute Albums of 2024

Posted by Staff at 9:00 am No Responses »

Dec 192024

Follow all our Best of 2024 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

A great cover song is hard enough to pull off. Doing it over and over again enough times to make a great cover album is something like a miracle. This year, miracles abounded. We awarded only the third or fourth five-star album in the site’s history. That’s our number one, naturally. But if we’d run a full review of our number two album, it might have gotten five stars too.

Our list includes tributes to everyone from Lou Reed to Low to Tom Petty—twice. It includes jammy experimental covers of ’90s alt-rock, fingerpicked guitar covers of Kraftwerk, and skankin’ ska covers of Weird Al. It translates Leonard Cohen into Hebrew and Talking Heads into Spanish. It honors Fleetwood Mac before Fleetwood Mac and deeper Bob Dylan cuts than you can imagine. (Seriously, imagine the most obscure Bob Dylan song you can. These are more obscure than that.) It was that kind of year.

Snoop Dogg and Jelly Roll Take “Last Dance” with Tom Petty

Posted by Luke Poling at 9:58 am No Responses »

Dec 182024

A new album by Snopp Dogg has just been released. Titled Missionary, it features a unique cover/collaboration with the late Tom Petty. On “Last Dance with Mary Jane,” Snoop trades lines with guest Jelly Roll as the riff from the Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers track loops in the background. And, lest you think this is a huge disrespect to Petty, the track’s producer, Dr Dre has something he’d like to let you know. Continue reading »

Sharon Van Etten Sings “I Won’t Back Down” for Bad Monkey TV Show

Posted by Riley Haas at 9:00 am 1 Response »

Oct 102024

The AppleTV+ mystery comedy Bad Monkey‘s full soundtrack album is now out, revealing the complete list of Tom Petty covers for those who haven’t been watching the show. (See flipturn’s cover of “Don’t Do Me Like That” for one of the covers that was released before the album dropped.) Sharon Van Etten is one of the more high profile artists to contribute to the soundtrack, though hardly the highest profile given the presence of Eddie Vedder and Weezer. Continue reading »

Atreyu Release Acoustic-ish “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” Cover

Posted by Riley Haas at 9:00 am No Responses »

Oct 042024

“Mary Jane’s Last Dance” was a bit of a weird hit for Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers. Recorded during sessions for Petty’s upcoming solo album but released for the band’s Greatest Hits album, it became one of his biggest ever hits in terms of chart position, reaching the Top 15 on the Hot 100.

American metalcore group Atreyu will soon be releasing their own greatest hits record, The Pronoia Sessions, but for this record they have re-recorded their hits in new arrangements, along with two covers. Last month we talked about their Aduioslave cover and this month it’s their cover of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

The iconic guitar riff that opens the song is completely transformed, slowed down and played on echoey guitar without distortion and another guitar with a spaghetti western feel, backed by a keyboard. For the chorus, they go even further afield, as there are acoustic guitars and a string section. For the post-chorus guitar fill, they replace it with a wordless vocal reminiscent of Imagine Dragons.

The effect is to really emphasize the ballad nature of the song over the rock part. It’s a cover that really feels 21st century rock band, even if lacks the usual rock elements. It’s a fascinating spin on a song that is very much identified with its guitar and harmonic riffs.