On the turntable this Sunday...Damn The Torpedoes

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their third album, Damn the Torpedoes in 1979. This was the first of three Petty albums released by the Backstreet Records label, distributed by MCA Records. The album was a huge commercial success for Tom Petty and peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 album chart.  Damn the Torpedoes remained on the Billboard album chart for over seven weeks and was only kept from #1 by Pink Floyd's The Wall.



Damn the Torpedoes produced two songs that made the top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart: "Don't Do Me Like That" (#10) and "Refugee" (#15). New co-producer Jimmy Lovine helped improve the sonic quality of the recording and Damn the Torpedoes was ranked number 313 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

In case you ever wondered, the title is a reference to a famous quote by Admiral David Farragut: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"