10 Blatantly Unfinished Rock Albums (That Were Released Anyway)

Any band who would consider something like Southern Accents to be unfinished should be considered a prodigy of the music world. With some of the most beautiful melodies that Tom Petty would ever write and some crisp '80s production courtesy of Jimmy Iovine, there's practically no fat apparent on anything of this record. No...the reason this is unfinished is because this was not the record that Tom had promised.

When going into the studio, the Heartbreakers originally wanted to make this album by themselves with no producer, and had their sights set on making a double record. By the time they actually got off the road and took a break, things slowed down so much that they couldn't function in the studio, leading to one episode where Petty broke his hand after hitting a wall in frustration.

Even though Iovine was brought on as an advisor for the project, he quickly took the reigns and said that there was no way that they had a double albums' worth of material. With the concept of describing the American South out the window, the band decided to just hunker down and write some of the best songs they could while still keeping the core theme of the record. Southern Accents may hold up as one of the Heartbreakers' better records, but it's a shame that it could have been so much more.