Mellencamp launched his career as “Johnny Cougar,” a sobriquet thrust upon him by then-manager Tony DeFries, and Chestnut Street Incident presents an artist whose instincts run to recycled Stones riffs and Springsteen-derived braggadocio–an embarrassing combination. 

 Switching labels and management, Mellencamp produced the import-only A Biography, which swaps the Stonesisms for a sound closer to that of the Faces and is noteworthy only for having produced his first hit (in Australia, anyway), the casually sexist “I Need a Lover.” 

 Mellencamp plows ever deeper into the Great American Rock cliché with Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did, which pushes his I’m-a-rebel posturing to ever more preposterous extremes. 

 John Cougar, which did see domestic release, also includes the song. Mellencamp plows ever deeper into the Great American Rock cliché with Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did, which pushes his I’m-a-rebel posturing to ever more preposterous extremes. 

 What changed things was “Jack & Diane,” a heartland slice-of-life number from American Fool. Although its lyrics rarely get more than ankle-deep, the music strikes an impressive balance between anthemic power and down-home intimacy, and it topped Billboard's Hot 100. 

 Uh-huh was packed with hits: Pink Houses” couches its small-town odes in cleverly distilled Stones licks, while “Authority Song” offers an agreeable update on Eddie Cochran’s wild-youth raveups. 

 Cut in 1977, The Kid Inside the Man" was rush-released by former manager Tony DeFries six years later in an attempt to capitalize on Mellencamp's increasing fame.  

 On Scarecrow, Mellencamp makes the most of his Sixties-rock-revivalist approach, with powerfully performed music so astonishingly eloquent that it easily outweighs the ideological overreach of songs like “Small Town” and the ludicrous “Justice and Independence ’85.” Five of the album�... 

 The Early Years contains highlights (loosely speaking) of the first two albums he recorded, Chestnut Street Incident and The Kid Inside the Man. 

 Mellencamp took a sharp left turn with The Lonesome Jubilee, moving from heartland rock to an Appalachian-influenced sound that owed more to Desire-era Dylan than any Stones album. That’s not to say the album abandons rock; just listen to “Rooty Toot Toot” or “Cherry Bomb.”  

 Big Daddy expands on his new fiddle-driven sound, but its folkie flourishes and grand gestures seem to be largely rhetorical, while of its songs, only the self-serving “Pop Singer" stands out. 

 Whenever We Wanted finds the singer returning to the straight-up guitar rock of Scarecrow and Uh-Huh, and though there’s more than enough melodic appeal to the likes of “Love and Happiness” and “Get a Leg Up,” the album’s attempts at social commentary are overwrought. 

 With Human Wheels, Mellencamp turns unexpectedly depressive, offering dark, dreary songs that ask the listener to work harder than the music merits.  

 Things perk up with Dance Naked, in which Mellencamp again embraces the gutsy, physical aspects of rock & roll and tosses in a sterling cover of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night.”  

 Mr. Happy Go Lucky finds Mellencamp collaborating with remix star Junior Vasquez, a guy more likely to work with Madonna than a rootsy rocker. Nonetheless, the combination clicks, and there’s a sizzle and spirit to the music that goes well beyond Mellencamp’s usual effort. 

 After that happy experiment, Mellencamp left his old label, Mercury, for Columbia. Trouble was, he still owed Mercury two albums–hence the more-or-less greatest-hits collection The Best That I Could Do. 

 John Mellencamp consolidates the country and urban influences of his last few Mercury studio albums into a vivid, diverse, and unexpectedly coloristic sound. The depth of such tracks as “Eden Is Burning” or the beat-driven “Break Me Off Some" is among his best work. 

 A semi-live, odds-and-sods compilation. 

 Cuttin’ Heads backs Mellencamp with a raucous, soulful sound, and even includes a cameo by Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The music on the album’s political songs is more fully realized than the words, but songs such as the mildly self-deprecating “Women Seem” are among his best.  

 Trouble No More is mostly covers–well-chosen and beautifully sung. He does provide some new, Dubya-bashing lyrics for the traditional “To Washington,” but the album’s greatest strengths are Mellencamp's readings of blues classics like Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passway.”  

 In 2004, Mellencamp released Words and Music: John Mellencamp’s Greatest Hits, his only thorough, career-spanning retrospective. In a non-linear fashion it traces his entire career from 1978s “I Need A Lover” through the 2004 anti-Bush screed “Walk Tall.” 

 After a six-year break, Mellencamp re-emerged with the decidely dark and heavy Freedom’s Road. The disc takes takes a harsh look at America in the midst of Bush’s second term. “Rural Route” and “Ghost Town’s Along The Highway” are far cry from the romanticized vision of “Small Tow... 

 Alongside producer T-Bone Burnett, Mellencamp stripped down his music to its bones. With the exception of “My Sweet Love,” the disc is a road-trip across an America blighted by racial intolerance, random violence and political corruption, representing some of the strongest work of his career.