10 Legendary Rock Albums That Were Originally Very Different

Ever since they started, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were a band that seemed to live on the road. From their first record onward, they knew nothing more than going into the studio to make an album and touring the rest of their lives, but Tom wanted to make something a little bit more epic for their next record. This would have been the picture of the South that Tom had known as a kid, but coming off the road turned out to be a huge mistake.

As the band went into the studio to cut Southern Accents, the initial draft was looking to make it a double album, with each side showing a different shade of what the South had to offer. There was a lot of drive for the band to make something good, but that drive was often fueled by cocaine, leading to the sessions grinding to a halt and having more than a few hangers on trying to get a piece of them in the process. Tom's judgement also started to falter too, turning down a song from Mike Campbell that would eventually turn into Boys of Summer for Don Henley.

After a break from recording that left Tom with a crushed hand, producer Jimmy Iovine was brought back into the picture and shifted the focus of the record to a great single record instead of the lavish double album experience they were looking for. While Tom has said that Southern Accents was far from the kind of album that he heard in his head, he was much prouder of the album that it became once they finished it off.