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John Mellencamp: The Essential Album-by-Album Guide

From his days as Johnny Cougar to "Live, Death, Love and Freedom"

Rolling Stone

Posted Aug 21, 2008 8:30 AM

CHESTNUT STREET INCIDENT (1976)
Key Tracks: "American Dream," "Good GIrls"
Quick Take: It takes more than a leap of faith to be excited by Mellencamp's first five or six albums. He 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. His version of "Oh, Pretty Woman" is fine and "American Dream" contains traces of the songwriter he would grow into, but especially compared to his later output, this one is a non-starter.

THE KID INSIDE (1977)
Key Tracks: "Take What You Want," "Gearhead"
Quick Take: The Kid Inside sees Mellencamp — still saddled with the "Cougar" sobriquet — still trying to establish his sound. If anything, it's a step back from his debut, as A Kid Inside lacks the faux-Stonesian punch of the previous work. It contains one satisfying oddity: his cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World."

A BIOGRAPHY (1978)
Key Tracks: "I Need a Lover," "Night Slumming"
Quick Take: Switching labels and management but still stuck with the name Johnny Cougar, Mellencamp produced the import-only A Biography, which swaps 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."

A Biography (Riva)

JOHN COUGAR (1979)
Key Tracks: "Miami," "Do You Think That's Fair"
Quick Take: John Cougar did see domestic release, and also includes several slightly reworked versions of songs from A Biography, including "I Need a Lover" and "Taxi Dancer." The songs are a little sharper and the production a little more complete, but he was still taking baby steps towards greatness.

John Cougar (Mercury)

NOTHIN' MATTERS AND WHAT IF IT DID (1980)
Key Tracks: "This Time," "Ain't Even Done With the Night"
Quick Take: 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. Though none of the songs really stand out, the Springsteen-esque obsession with dusty, hard-living Americans acts as a dry run for his bigger breakout releases of the '80s.

Nothin' Matters and What If It Did (Mercury)

AMERICAN FOOL (1982)
Key Tracks: "Hurts So Good," "Jack and Diane"
Quick Take: Everything changed for Mellencamp with "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. Guitarists Larry Crane and Mike Wanchic know how to raise a ruckus, and drummer Ken Aronoff is good at interrupting it with an authoritative thump. The alternating slap of electric guitar chords and an acoustic guitar's tickle tease "Jack and Diane" into something far more memorable than Cougar's clichéd account of "two American kids growin' up in the heartland" would otherwise suggest.

American Fool (Mercury)

UH-HUH (1983)
Key Tracks: "Pink Houses," "Jackie O"
Quick Take: Written, arranged and recorded in sixteen days, Uh-Huh proves that spontaneity often wins out over endless production tinkering. Stepping away from the shadow of Seger and Springsteen, Mellencamp opted for a lean, slightly distorted rec-room sound, and while the lyrics may be shot through with big questions and ponderings, the prime directive is momentum. Sensibility, not sense, matters on such songs as "Crumblin' Down," with its mean guitar strut, and "Authority Song," in which a rollicking melody seems to mock Mellencamp's dialogue with a preacher. What sustains Uh-Huh is Mellencamp's cat-burglar adroitness for pinching fretboard riffs and song stylings from a wealth of primal rock & roll sources.

Uh-Huh (Mercury)

SCARECROW (1985)
Key Tracks: "Rain on the Scarecrow," "Small Town"
Quick Take: Scarecrow is where Mellencamp makes the most of his approach, with music so astonishingly eloquent that it easily outweighs the ideological overreach of songs like "Small Town" and the ludicrous "Justice and Independence '85." At its best, Scarecrow brings both Mellencamp's Sixties-rock fixation and his fiercely patriotic distrust of big business and big politics into the muck of the modern world, with scintillating results — especially on the hard rocking "Rain on the Scarecrow."

Scarecrow (Mercury)

Scarecrow (Mercury)

THE LONESOME JUBILEE (1987)
Key Tracks: "Paper in Fire," "Cherry Bomb"
Quick Take: Rather than refine that sound of Scarecrow, 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."

The Lonesome Jubilee (Mercury)

BIG DADDY (1989)
Key Tracks: "Martha Say," "Country Gentleman"
Quick Take: Big Daddy expands on the fiddle-driven sound of The Lonesome Jubilee, but its folkie flourishes and grand gestures seem to be largely rhetorical, while its songs, apart from the self-serving "Pop Singer" and the casual "Country Gentleman" are unmemorable.

Big Daddy (Mercury)

WHENEVER WE WANTED (1991)
Key Tracks: "Get a Leg Up," "Now More Than Ever"
Quick Take: Whenever We Wanted found the singer returning to the straight-up, Stones-style 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. Mellencamp delivers no single anthem of the power of Scarecrow's "Small Town," nor any story-song as closely observed as Big Daddy's phenomenal "Jackie Brown" — instead, he relies on sonic muscle and a more condensed style of lyrics to get his points across.

Whenever We Wanted (Mercury)

HUMAN WHEELS (1993)
Key Tracks: "When Jesus Left Birmingham," "Human Wheels"
Quick Take: With Human Wheels, Mellencamp turned unexpectedly depressive, offering dark, dreary songs that ask the listener to work harder than the music merits. Still, Mellencamp's band sounds more involved and inspired than ever, with guitarist David Grissom hurling lightning bolts that split the soundscape and drummer Kenny Aronoff providing the most inventively dependable propulsion since Charlie Watts. The recruitment of Malcolm Burn (Neville Brothers, Iggy Pop) as co-producer adds some textural embellishment to the crispness that has long marked Mellencamp's riff-rocking recordings.

Human Wheels (Mercury)

DANCE NAKED (1994)
Key Tracks: "Wild Night," "Another Sunny Day 12/25"
Quick Take: After the dreariness of Human Wheels, things perk up with Dance Naked, in which Mellencamp again embraces the gutsy, physical aspects of rock & roll. Recorded quickly as a response to the accusation that he couldn't write singles, it contains some of Mellencamp's catchiest work and also includes a sterling cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night."

Dance Naked (Mercury)

MR. HAPPY GO LUCKY (1996)
Key Tracks: "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)," "Jackamo Road"
Quick Take: The feel-good approach of Dance Naked takes an unexpected turn with Mr. Happy Go Lucky, which finds Mellencamp collaborating with remix star Junior Vasquez. The combination clicks, and there's a sizzle and spirit to the music that goes well beyond Mellencamp's usual. The hit single "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)" made Mellencamp an ulikely radio star in the post-grunge era and saw him embacing dance music in the pre-electronica period.

Mr. Happy Go Lucky (Mercury)

JOHN MELLENCAMP (1998)
Key Tracks: "Positively Crazy," "I'm Not Running Anymore"
Quick Take: After that happy experiment, Mellencamp left his old label, Mercury, for a new one, Columbia. 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 both surprising and refreshing.

John Mellencamp (Columbia)

CUTTIN' HEADS (2001)
Key Tracks: "Women Seem," "Peaceful World"
Quick Take: The energy of John Mellencamp continues on Cuttin' Heads, which not only backs Mellencamp with a raucous, soulful sound, but actually includes a cameo by Public Enemy's Chuck D. Admittedly, the music on the album's "political" songs is more fully realized than the words are, but personal songs such as the mildly self-deprecating "Women Seem" are among his best.

Cuttin' Heads (Columbia)

TROUBLE NO MORE (2003)
Key Tracks: "To Washington," "Death Letter"
Quick Take: Trouble No More follows up with mostly covers — well-chosen and beautifully sung, but covers nonetheless. He does provide some new, Dubya-bashing lyrics for the traditional "To Washington," but the album's greatest strengths are his readings of such blues classics as Memphis Minnie's "Joliet Bound" and Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway."

Trouble No More (Columbia)

FREEDOM'S ROAD (2007)
Key Tracks: "Jim Crow," "Our Country"
Quick Take: Freedom's Road had the lifelong Indiana resident attempting to find his place in an America he has trouble recognizing: The small-town life he romanticized in the 1980s is still close to his heart, but he now paints a disturbing rural portrait of racism, unrealized dreams and crystal-meth addiction. "Jim Crow" is a lovely Joan Baez duet with a dark message on the modern state of race relations. The weak link is truck ad "Our Country" — a ham-fisted "Born in the USA" rewrite in which he sings, "There's room enough here for religion to forgive."

Freedom's Road (Universal)

LIFE, DEATH, LOVE AND FREEDOM (2008)
Key Tracks: "My Sweet Love," "County Fair"
Quick Take: Mellencamp teamed up with producer T Bone Burnett to create a whole new sound on Life, Death, Love and Freedom, a set of textured, atmospheric folk and country blues that adds up to one of the most compelling albums of Mellencamp's career. There's not a bright, catchy riff or fist-pumping populist anthem to be found among these brooding, low-key songs about growing old, sick, lonely and pessimistic. But Mellencamp excels at the simple tunes: the twangy "My Sweet Love," kick-started by a big Bo Diddley beat and sweetened with female harmonies, and "A Ride Back Home," his desperate plea to Jesus over spare, ragged guitars.

Life, Death, Love and Freedom (Hear Music)

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