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Music : Life Death Love and FreedomBrowse or Search and Buy Online our Best Sellers Shopping Sales of Music and Life Death Love and Freedom. Rating:  - John Mellencamp's New Release: Excellent RecordI got this for Christmas. I am not an overwhelming Mellencamp fan. However, this CD is incredible! It is very well written, thought provoking and not overly cynical. I was grabbed by the first song. If you are looking for something quietly brilliant, understated but with a punch, this is the CD!!! I agree with one of the other reviewers, it is his best CD in a decade. Rating:  - #5Rolling Stone recently listed this album as the #5 best album of 2008. I thought, "Jeepers creepers, maybe I better listen again." I understand that Mellencamp is a great story teller. I understand that because this is a darker album that this will appeal to people that aren't cheerful. However, I found the music boring. Gone is the melodic imagination that has marked the best of the Cougar's work. The songs go up on one line and down on the next. Unfortunately, that's the pattern over and over and over. My favorite track on the CD is "Jena" with Andy York's searing lead guitar. But most of the other tracks blend into each other with faceless melodies. So as a musician and singer, yes, I like Mellancamp. But as a songwriter, while the subjects of his songs are interesting, the melodies he uses on this set make it hard to pay attention. Taxi! Rating: - John Mellencamp On The Morning After?I am not implying with this review that this CD sounds like a hangover-it doesn't. This is actually one of only two John Mellencamp albums I purchased (the other is the wonderful The Lonesome Jubilee) and the other reviews here already explain how different this is from an album like that so I won't go into it again-why preach to the converted?Anyway yes this isn't exactly the happy singalong kind of rock tunes of Mellencamp's fast. At the same time there's no indication he intended anything like that to start with. One thing I must say is John Mellencamp had the good sense to include a lyric booklet with this (believe it or not some CD's still don't include them) because the lyrics are the best part of this music. This album doesn't feature any subject matter that is light-Mellencamp talks about racism and politics,issues he is well accustomed to from his past. But at the same time it's all from the point of view of a middle aged person who seems to feel there are less years ahead then behind,hence the word "death" in the albums title I guess. So this is one of his most mature albums to this point. T Bone Burnett brings his years of production experience to this music which results in a serious of folksy,bluesy rock songs that are all very downbeat even when the tempo goes up a bit such as "Jena" or "John Cockers". But somehow this doesn't end up downbeat for downbeats sake which is something I've heard in a few albums recently. It's only natural that because these 14 songs are so serious that the music would'nt be particularly happy. There is nothing on this album I don't like but if I had to pick one favorite it would be "Troubled Land"-it has a somewhat similar feeling musically to Bob Dylan's "Things Have Changed" but the lyrics take on the plight all of today's societies victims,notably farmers with a dead honest plea to "bring peace to this troubled land".The interesting part is the lyrics have no resolution:it ends abruptly with the phrase "but I keep travelin' on" so.......in the end life and peace is still a journey and we all write our own ending as it were. It's very Mellencamp really and one of a few songs here that has a strong optimistic overtone,even if it has no real conclusion.So hey-I am not one for all kinds of "dark" music but whatever it is they do I have a hard time saying no when it comes to the music of people like Dylan,Springsteen and John Mellencamp. Rating:  - So unique and so fresh!This isn't the typical John Mellencamp, but it's still incredible music. Very passionate and very folksy. It's part Knopfler, part Dylan. It's so sincere and feels like the kind of music Mellencamp was born to sing. Rating: - Another great albumJohn Mellencamp continues to hold my interest as a fan after almost 30 years. I really enjoy his style changes, yet staying true to his "style", and that he keeps his lyrics in the folk category. I recommend this album to old and new fans. |