10 Classic Albums That Artists Hated Recording

There’s always the legend in rock and roll revolving around the third album. While some bands might just want to make a second record just to say that they’ve made it, the third album is what separates the legends from the flashes in the pan, proving that you weren’t a fluke and that fans will be talking about you for a long time. Everything hinged on Damn the Torpedoes for Tom Petty, but he also had a different target in mind: his label.

As soon as the sessions started, the band were being told that MCA was trying to seize the copyright on their songs, which led to Tom declaring bankruptcy in an attempt to get his songs back. While Petty may have been dealing with the lawyers by day, he was still hammering out the best record that he could, where he also ran into trouble with drummer Stan Lynch. After hiring Jimmy Iovine to oversee the production, the band had to end up playing songs hundreds of times before they got the right take, which drove Stan up the wall after Iovine didn’t take a liking to his drum sound.

There were even a few times where the drama got to be too much for the rest of the guys, with Mike Campbel leaving halfway through the sessions for a couple of days just to cool out from all of the pressure that was on their shoulders. Once the band got their publishing back though, there was no one who could touch them, with songs like Refugee and Don’t Do Me Like That becoming staples of rock radio and turning them into superstars. It wasn’t an easy task to get everything rolling, but if you believe in the power of rock and roll, anything is possible.