New Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Album on Audio Blu-ray (Update: Listen Link)

The latest album by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Mojo, will be released on June 29 on audio Blu-ray, two weeks after the CD. The BD will contain all 15 tracks from Mojo in high-resolution stereo LPCM (at 24 bits and 48kHz), and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround. It is an audio-only disc, with basic navigation and song information displayed on screen; a screensaver switches to non-static images of the cover art 30 seconds after each song begins.

Note that the Amazon page erroneously lists this title as DVD-Audio, but the logo on the cover denotes that this is actually a BD.

The track listing is as follows:

1. Jefferson Jericho Blues
2. First Flash Of Freedom
3. Running Man's Bible
4. The Trip To Pirate's Cove
5. Candy
6. No Reason To Cry
7. I Should Have Known It
8. U.S. 41
9. Takin' My Time
10. Let Yourself Go
11. Don't Pull Me Over
12. Lover's Touch
13. High In The Morning
14. Something Good Coming
15. Good Enough

It must be noted that Tom Petty is an ardent supporter of Blu-ray for music. In an interview with Sound and Vision Magazine, he said that Blu-ray is "the closest you can get to sitting in the control room. I don't know how many people it will immediately appeal to, but more and more people are going to come this way." He considered that "to disregard the hi-fi end of what we do is wrong."

From the album production notes

Some time in the last few years Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers took a left turn. Maybe it was when Petty woke up in the night with the idea of reuniting his first band, Mudcrutch, to cut the album they never got a chance to make back in the early 70's. Maybe it was when the Heartbreakers assembled the mammoth multi-disc The Live Anthology, which detailed thirty years of concerts. Maybe it was when they gave all their home movies, outtakes and live footage to director Peter Bogdanovich to create the Grammy-winning four-hour career documentary Runnin Down A Dream. There have been side projects and experiments since the band last went into the studio to cut a new Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album.

With Mojo, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have taken their recent freedom and experimentation to heart. They have gone off the reservation and all signs indicate they aren't coming back.

The first thing that hits you about Mojo is that the spirit of the Mudcrutch sessions has carried on with the Heartbreakers. This is the sound of a band playing together in a room, not a studio - facing each other, all singing and playing at the same time. The music is alive, with no overdubs or studio trickery. What you hear is what they created on the spot at that time.

Tom Petty says, "With this album, I want to show other people what I hear with the band. Mojo is where the band lives when it's playing for itself."

As for the songs, Mojo showcases a wide variety of American music from rock 'n' roll to country and both electric and acoustic blues. And then there are the images in Petty's lyrics which slip in on the melodies and set up a home in your head: The barefoot girl in the high grass chewing on a stick of sugar cane, the run-in with the law that begins when a carload of buddies decide to party with the motel maids, and the hilariously audacious idea of opening an album with an electric blues rocker about Thomas Jefferson's love affair with Sally Hemings. Petty would probably chuck a rock at anyone who called him a poet, but he sure is a southern writer of humor and sensitivity.

Mojo has juice and guts but it also has some sweet balladry for the slow dancers and even a wacked-out reggae number that is unlike anything that the Heartbreakers have done before. It's the kind of album nobody's supposed to be able to make anymore. It got here just in time.

The producer's note informs that the 48K, 24-bit audio on this disc has 256 times more resolution than a CD, providing greater detail and reproducing the music's full dynamic range, from the softest to the loudest sounds. To achieve full dynamic range it's necessary to master with less overall level, so this disc might not sound as "loud" as a standard CD or film soundtrack. The note concludes: "To compensate for this, turn up the volume!"

Update

You can listen to the whole album online on the ESPN website until June 15, which is the release date of the CD.

Thanks to forum members blu2, dobyblue and MikeZ.