Tom Petty's latest release, The Last DJ (Warner Bros) does something that many artists in the music biz cannot or choose not to do: take shots at the music industry for their crooked, greedy ways. One of my favorite bands, Superdrag, tried the same thing with their 1998 Elektra Records release, Head Trip in Every Key, and were promptly dropped from the label. From what I know it wasn't the only reason they were dropped, but I'm sure the in-your-face lyrics on the album didn't please those on the top floor. The significant difference between Tom Petty and Superdrag is that Petty has made Warner Bros a bundle, while Superdrag had one commercial hit, Sucked Out, off of it's 1996 album Regretfully Yours.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers open the album with the title cut, The Last DJ, which tells the story of the end of radio as a personalized medium where the DJ could "play what he wants to play, say what he wants to say". The entire album takes a look at the industry from a point of view, while fairly straightforward and basic, nonetheless extremely important. It's not so much the actual message that Tom Petty is writing in his lyrics that makes this album so important, but rather the plain fact that he did it. That someone of his stature to send off such songs into the mainstream music world has to bother the execs at Warner Bros. But the last thing they would do is say no.

Track 4 on The Last DJ is Joe. Joe's a CEO, he's "the man that makes the big wheels roll". Joe's main focus is the fact that "you get to be famous, and [he] gets to be rich". He talks about his gift for creating something out of nothing, turning a good looking kid or "some angel whore who can learn a guitar lick" into a star, a money-making machine. This song counts as the most blatant lyrically of Petty's new release.

The question remains: Why would Petty attack the very industry that has brought him riches and success? I think he would argue that it's gone too far. The money-making machine has lost it's focus of producing good music. "The lonely DJ's digging a ditch, trying to keep the flames from the temple." Tom Petty is our last DJ. He's made an attempt, doing all he can artistically, to protect the Mecca of real music, the fundamentals of an industry gone wrong. Petty wants to preserve the "temple" for the new kids of rock & roll.

And to that I say emphatically: Rock on, Tom.

For more on Tom Petty, see here.