Release and Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Robert Christgau | B+ |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
The album was a breakthrough for Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was their first top 10 album rising to #2 (for seven weeks and kept from #1 by Pink Floyd's The Wall) on the Billboard albums chart. It yielded two songs that made the top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, "Don't Do Me Like That" (#10) and "Refugee" (#15). Thanks to the new co-producer Jimmy Iovine, Damn the Torpedoes proved to be a major leap forward in production.
Critical reception generally reflected the commercial success of the album. The original review in Rolling Stone raved that it was the "album we've all been waiting for – that is, if we were all Tom Petty fans, which we would be if there were any justice in the world". Subsequent reviews have continued this trend calling it "one of the great records of the album rock era" and culminating in its placement in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Read more about this topic: Damn The Torpedoes (album)
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