Said, not surprisingly, better than I ever could have

Over at NPR, ex-Sleater-Kinner guitarist Carrie Brownstein keeps a blog called Monitor Mix and it's (not surprisingly) pretty excellent.

With that said, I wanted to point to something she wrote today on the topic of yesterday's halftime performer, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers:

But while Springsteen is a street preacher, with always an air of sacredness and rage to his songs, Petty is more of a street sweeper. His songs speak of what's been left behind or used up, and they put a polish on what we thought to be dull and dreary. His best songs are bursts of possibility born from dinginess, from nothingness; the guitars jangle, the choruses lift you up, and all the while Petty's voice is there to keep things earthbound.

It goes without saying that what Brownstein wrote is much better than anything I've ever written, either on Petty or not.