Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Tribune
Entertainment Weekly	B+
The Essential Rock Discography	6/10
Los Angeles Times
MusicHound
The New York Times	(favorable)
People	(favorable)
Q
Rolling Stone
Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music

Into the Great Wide Open is the eighth studio album by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, first released in 1991 (see 1991 in music). The album was the band's last with MCA Records. The album was the second Petty produced with Jeff Lynne after the success of Full Moon Fever.

The first single, "Learning to Fly", became his joint longest-running number one single (along with "The Waiting" from 1981's Hard Promises) on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, spending six weeks at the top spot. The second single, "Out in the Cold", also made number 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, albeit only for two weeks.

The music video for the title song starred Johnny Depp, who had moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to seek rock stardom, along with Gabrielle Anwar, Faye Dunaway, Matt LeBlanc, Terence Trent D'Arby and Chynna Phillips.

For the most part, Into the Great Wide Open was warmly received by critics. Dave DiMartino, reviewing the album for Entertainment Weekly said that the album was the closest "classic" album Petty and the band had made in fifteen years, saying that the album was a return to their first two albums. He feels that this is due largely to Jeff Lynne and that the songs are better than the ones on Full Moon Fever.Rolling Stone critic Parke Puterbaugh called the album a cross between Full Moon Fever and Damn the Torpedoes, said that it features Petty's best lyrics and that it is much better than Let Me Up (I've Had Enough).Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic was less impressed, saying that Into the Great Wide Open sounds too much like Full Moon Fever. He said that the album was "pleasant" but was not his best. In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album a one-star honorable mention, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like".

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Wikipedia