The Last DJ [Bonus DVD]

1	The Last DJ 3:31
2	Money Becomes King 5:12
3	Dreamville 3:46
4	Joe 3:16
5	When a Kid Goes Bad 4:51
6	Like a Diamond 4:35
7	Lost Children 4:29
8	Blue Sunday 2:56
9	You and Me 2:56
10	The Man Who Loves Women 2:53
11	Have Love Will Travel 4:06
12	Can't Stop the Sun 4:52

Barnes & Noble

Tom Petty has always done his best work when he's pissed off -- and that's definitely the mood on this sharp, stark disc. The Last DJ indicts modern society -- using the music biz as a microcosm -- for its enthusiastic embrace of all things soulless. The disc's title track spins a yarn about a man trying to swim against that current, and -- propelled along by some of Mike Campbell's most acerbic playing in some time -- it might just serve as a wake-up call to some. The purposefully unctuous "Joe" takes aim at the guys in the corner office at some anonymous record company, although the lack of lyrical detail doesn't detract from the power of Petty's roundhouse punches. He doesn't omit his peers from scrutiny, either: The neo-psychedelic "Money Becomes King" sneers at a musician who's all too ready to sell his soul to the highest bidder -- something that's long been on Petty's mind, given his long-standing disavowal of corporate sponsorship. Knowing full well that an entire disc of such screeds would grow old kinda quickly, Petty steps outside the confines of his own world on a few songs, though even here the tone doesn't get appreciably brighter. "When a Kid Goes Bad," which revives the singer's longstanding Beatlemania, mixes melancholy and stormier emotions in its darkly spinning melody, while "Lost Children" lurches around furtively in search of a solution that never comes. Tom Petty really hasn't changed all that much over the years -- his Hard Promises, however, seem to have evolved into Even Harder Questions. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Tom Petty has always battled corporations and the music industry -- fighting for lower retail prices for Hard Promises, complaining about videos, and always fighting for old-school, artist-first '60s rock aesthetics. There's a lot to admire about this stance, especially since he's essentially right about corporations having too much of a stranglehold on pop music. Not every song on the record is about the death of rock & roll and the evils that corporations do, but it sure feels that way, since it begins with the one-two punch of "The Last DJ" and "Money Becomes King." The former is a bitter lament for the loss of free thought in pop culture, using the DJ as a truth-telling seer; the latter is a rewrite of "Into the Great Wide Open," all about a favorite artist who sells out. These front-loaded tracks obscure the lovely "Dreamville," the best song here. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Rolling Stone

At once nostalgic and forward-looking, The Last DJ is quintessential Petty, by turns strident and starry-eyed. Greg Kot

Entertainment Weekly

Apparently, Petty needed to work himself into an indignant lather to produce his most consequential songs in years. (A-) Marc Weingarten