'Into the great wide open' started out as potentially another Tom Petty solo record, but it eventually became a full-scale collaboration with his longtime backup band, the Heartbreakers. This shift in Petty's conception of the album enabled him to combine the unduplicable power of a long-standing band of rock & roll confederates with the new directions he has pursued with Jeff Lynne, the new album's co-producer and Petty's fellow Traveling Wilbury. In its best moments, the result sounds like a cross between Full Moon Fever and Damn the Torpedoes and features the most focused and resonant lyrics Petty has ever written.

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