In his popular 2008 book Outliers: The Story Of Success, Malcolm Gladwell argues that the key to mastery of any task — and presumably, success — is the devotion of 10,000 hours to it. He uses as an example the constant and tireless gigging of an unknown Beatles in Hamburg, who were practically seasoned onstage veterans before the world knew them by name, making their gargantuan success less a matter of cultural coincidence than of logical trajectory. One might also add the Band’s hermetic tutelage under Ronnie Hawkins as further evidence of Gladwell’s theory: because few ever witnessed the band’s growing pains, it is easy to attribute their achievements to divine precocity rather than the years of anonymous wood-shedding that made those achievements possible. Petty, Campbell, and Tench worked the Gainesville bar-band-and-strip-club circuit for years, often performing five sets a night, six nights a week, before finding any acclaim outside of their hometown. Well-versed in rhythm and blues before they recorded their first single, the Heartbreakers had already laid the groundwork for their distinct pop-rock sound years prior to signing a record deal, at which point the band appeared to emerge fully-formed. Taking this into account, it is still surprising how good a debut Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers really is. “Rockin’ Around (With You)” (the first song ever co-written by Campbell and Petty!) starts things off with a rhythm section straight out of Sun Studios, with a rockabilly bassline and an insistent, primal rhythm providing a bed for wide spectrum harmonies and tough-sounding background vocals; the seething, seductive “Breakdown” is a masterpiece of atmosphere and mood; and “American Girl” brilliantly blends the 12-string jangle of the Byrds, the roistering, febrile energy of pub rock, and the hopped-up hiccupping of Charlie Feathers. The entire album is a clinic in instrumental interplay and band dynamics, despite everything sounding like some miraculous first take. Of the debut album’s ten songs, two do not feature all of the Heartbreakers: “Hometown Blues” is essentially the Mudcrutch lineup with Duck Dunn from the MGs added on bass, while Dylan-rip “Strangered In The Night” is from Petty’s aborted pre-Heartbreakers solo album featuring the doomed Jim Gordon on drums and latter-day Elvis bassist Emory Gordy on bass. It’s telling that these two songs are the album’s weakest, but even these might have been hit singles for lesser bands, as would the Springsteen-sounding “Mystery Man” and the mission statement “Anything That’s Rock and Roll,” a song that provides the album with a sort of rockist motto.