10 Perfect Rock Albums That Are Incredibly Sad

There are only a handful of rock stars that were able to hold onto their integrity for as long as Tom Petty has. After emerging at the tail end of the '70s rock scene, he managed to sidestep some of the cheesiness of the '80s and looked like he was primed for another chapter in his career with Wildflowers, earning the respect of both classic rockers and even the alternative crowd in the process. His career may have been looking up, but the personal life of this Heartbreaker was in shambles.

While Tom had been in the midst of a nasty separation from his wife in the mid '90s, the emotional trauma didn't really turn up until Echo, where he has his heart on his sleeve a little too much some of the time. Going through every one of these songs, Tom seems to be going through different emotions that he can't make sense of, from pleading with his wife to take him back on Room at the Top to hearing the echoes of all the experiences they shared on the title track.

The real sadness was what was happening right in front of the Heartbreakers' eyes though, with bassist Howie Epstein slowly starting to lose his battle with heroin addiction and Tom allegedly cooling out in a chicken shack for days on end as he tried to put himself back together. The songs may have been a cathartic way for Tom to cope, but he also said that this is the one record of his that he doesn't like to revisit all that often.