Whenever We Wanted (1991)

Two weeks after Nirvana's Nevermind landed in record stores and three weeks after Guns N' Roses double-disc opus Use Your Illusion debuted, John Mellencamp was reborn. October 8, 1991 saw the release of Whenever We Wanted, the first album to be released under the last name he would ever use; John Mellencamp. Whenever We Wanted found Mellencamp striving forward and all but abandoning the accordion, fiddle and heartland music he had perfected over his last three albums. Whenever We Wanted showcases the thunderous return of the electric guitar. Not only is it a fine return to form, but he has turned up the volume producing his heaviest record to date. Right from the get go, the storming politically conscious "Love & Happiness" sets the course with thick crunching riffs that would not relent until the disc had spun all ten tunes. While the album is arguably his least adventurous since American Fool, that is not necessarily bad. Mellencamp took the pastoral sounds as far as he could go with Scarecrow, The Lonesome Jubilee and Big Daddy. Here the music is stripped to the bare minimum (or at least I thought it was until the release of Dance Naked). While Lisa Germano's violin is absent from the entire recording, guitarists Mike Wanchic and David Grissom lead the attack with their dueling guitars while drummer Kenny Aronoff and bassist Toby Myers keep the beat as John Cascella fills in colors with his Hammond B-3 organ to the guitar heavy record. The tour in support of the album is viewed by most Mellencamp fans as his defining moment as a live performer.

The album has more in common with American Fool than The Lonesome Jubilee, yet lyrically he was expanding his themes to world views (which he would continue to do with his next few albums) on songs like the epic "Now More Than Ever" (a deserving anthem he should perform regularly), "Last Chance" and "Love & Happiness". Deep cuts like "Melting Pot" are uneven musically but winds up being a whimsical alternate route while the dreamy and atmospheric "Last Chance" is an homage of sorts to Chris Isaak and Roy Orbison. However, at the end of the day, the delight of the perfect pop tune could still be heard on amorous "Again Tonight" and the jolting "Get A Leg Up" showing that when you least expect it, one can still plug in the guitar and find their way home.

Falling From Grace (1992 Soundtrack)

Mellencamp directed this film from a Larry McMurtry screenplay. For the soundtrack, he brought together a wide and varied group of artists for what is truly a revelatory and highly influential album and for this reason, I am including it in this Idiot's Guide. The Falling From Grace soundtrack I believe is one of the first releases, along with Uncle Tupelo's debut, to embody the alternative country movement which would later be defined by Whiskeytown (and its primary writer Ryan Adams) and The Old 97's. The album consists of a collection of wonderfully sincere songs with a country flavor performed with hell bent rock n' roll attitude. Larry Crane's "Whiskey Burnin'" is one of the definitive examples of the genre while the Mellencamp penned "Sweet Suzanne" could have been a huge hit for him if he had kept it for a solo album instead of recording it under the name of Buzzin' Cousins (consisting of Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, James McMurtry, Joe Ely and John Prine). Ironically this performance garnered them a CMA nomination in 1992 for Vocal Event of the Year. There are two other songs performed by Mellencamp; the bracing "It Don't Scare Me None" and the sincere "Nothing's For Free" both written by Larry Crane. The soundtrack for Falling From Grace is wildly influential and showcases that Mellencamp, who produced the soundtrack, was much more hip and influential than anyone gives him credit for. The album is long out of print, but can be found cheaply on many used internet cd sites and I guarantee you it'll be one of the best purchases you'll ever make as it showcases a wonderful meld of rock, country and bluegrass numbers that will etch themselves into your consciousness.

Human Wheels (1993)

During every artists career they hit a stride where they see everything with a sense of clarity that allows their art to come into focus effortlessly. Human Wheels is an album that evokes a warm vintage feeling of nostalgia while simultaneously being the most emotionally concise and current record of his career and in my opinion Human Wheels is John Mellencamp's masterpiece. I know I said the same thing about Scarecrow, but for me, this is his most unfailing top to bottom work. Whether it's the down on his luck character of "Junior", the entrapment of complacency in "Beige to Beige" or the journey of the everyman seeking the next level of enlightenment on "To The River", these songs ring true and are embroidered and thematically connected beautifully through ten picturesque paintings. Mellencamp has always induced intense feelings of vulnerability and wistfulness, but on Human Wheels the stakes are elevated.

On Mellencamp's previous work, there was a vast amount of nostalgia with a yearning for better days and internal strife. On Human Wheels, Mellencamp tackles these issues head on and doesn't relent through forty-five hard driving minutes. The production and lyrics are performed and written with a widescreen effect and to date they remain his richest and most realized. Another key element to the albums success was the penetrating band Mellencamp had built up to this point. The majority of them had been performing with Mellencamp for close to a decade and as a result they were hot-blooded musicians whose cumulative efforts were not just delivered with pinpoint thunder but with a vigor and bare-knuckle desertion. Human Wheels demonstrates more than their virtuosity but it is their definitive imprint on Mellencamp's catalog. The immediacy of their power as a cohesive unit elevates the understated lyrics of "Suzanne and the Jewels" and "French Shoes" to heights only a epic and assaulting band could dream of. The pummeling heart on its sleeve "What If I Came Knocking" didn't crack the top ten, but to this day when performed in concert, you feel the infusion of rage its character feels through the sharp sway of the band. John Cascella's organ is superbly subtle on "Sweet Evening Breeze" with a lyric that is nostalgic and almost intrusive, but the perfectly textured instrumentation makes it hauntingly exquisite. The violent domestic tale "Case 795 (The Family)" is one of the two greatest non-singles of Mellencamp's career (see Cuttin' Heads for the other one). It perfectly melds a lyric Dylan would be proud to call his own with the aural vastness of U2 that results in the listener sensing the wreckage and conflict of the storyline.

John Mellencamp created a record that was discernible and consciously colossal. The music and lyrics are simultaneously merciless, mesmeric and tranquil. The full throated passion delivered on each of these ten thematically forward thinking tracks found an artist who had done more than evolve as a human, but one who also ponders about life's evolution and mysteries. During the album's opener, "When Jesus Left Birmingham", Mellencamp revisits his biggest hit as he and the band chant the refrain from "Jack & Diane"; "So let it rock, let it roll, let the Bible Belt come and save my soul". It's key that he reiterates these lyrics and not the one about holding "onto sixteen-as long as you can". This isn't about yesterday or today but tomorrow. By this point in his career Mellencamp had taken his audience on an expedition with his songs and albums, but on , the songs urge one to look inward for faith and conversion. This isn't about a temporary excursion, but about making long term maximum impact in your life. These aren't mere stories, but lessons being told of human wheels�well you guessed it, that go round and round. The question is, are we going to allow them to rule our lives, or will we steer the ride of life?

Sadly, Human Wheels is the end of an era for John Mellencamp. The band that helped create his most articulate and diverse music would never record in this formation again. John Cascella, accordion and organ player, died unexpectedly in the fall of 1992 and this album features his last recordings. The album is dedicated to his memory and after one more tour, the majority of those who helped meld this masterpiece went their separate ways.

Dance Naked (1994)

Disappointed with the sales performance of Human Wheels, Mellencamp dared his record company for full-on promotion with a gritty collection of nine garage rock songs which were literally recorded in the garage and released nine-short months after Human Wheels. In the previous decade, Mellencamp's albums become auditory landscapes that were easily identifiable but on Dance Naked he turns the tables where he abandoned the multi-instrument approach for minimalism; guitars, bass, drums and the occasional organ are the only instruments found on the record. When this album came out, everyone (including numerous critics) complained this album was only 29-minutes long. As the CD age continued onwards purists and critics alike asked why acts wouldn't consider releasing a much shorter albums and part of me thinks it's because when Mellencamp did, they criticized him. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

The opening lines of "Dance Naked" serve as an invite to the listener to kick off their shoes, let their hair down and "spin round and round". More than a carnal exploration, it's more of a dialogue of the senses and could be interpreted as Mellencamp inviting his listener to dig deeper into the fan/artist relationship if we'll accept him and his music in a more naked manner. The lyrics are simplistic but performed and sung with a conviction that only Mellencamp could execute and make credible. Regardless of length, the unexpected raw intimacy of these songs make this a defining, if undervalued, pop-wise album. The longest song, "The Breakout", clocks in at 3:43 with most of the tunes wavering around the three-minute mark. The effortlessness of this record is staggering and makes one wonder why certain artists feel the need to spend months and sometime years perfecting an album. "Brothers" is a classic Mellencamp about internal family strife that wouldn't have been out of place on Human Wheels with a jaunty back beat. "Too Much To Think About" and "The Big Jack" are guitar-infected jams that remind me of what Buddy Holly would have sounded like if he had lived while "L.U.V." is a discharging political artistic statement (and the album's most polished tune). For an album best known for the Van Morrison cover "Wild Night", providing Mellencamp with his last top-ten hit, it's far more ambidextrous and elliptical lyrically than anyone has even given credit.

Dance Naked touches on the themes of Human Wheels but it was recorded with the fervor, onslaught and cockiest snarl since Uh-Huh a decade earlier. Mellencamp found a happy musical medium that to date proved to be his last great unadulterated rock n' roll album. The minimalist rawness of the production and songwriting allows these songs to breathe. Dance Naked found the rocker John Mellencamp reborn as a rocker, albeit, the rebirth was short lived. Mere weeks into the tour, Mellencamp had a minor heart attack and didn't even know it until a month later when the rest of the tour was scrapped. Aside from select club shows in the Midwest in 1995 where he rocked out to 50's and 60's classics, it would be close to two-years before he was heard from again.

Mr. Happy Go Lucky (1996)

After a life altering change in his lifestyle, John Mellencamp got back to work on new music with a lucid view on taking his art to that next level. When Mr. Happy Go Lucky finally appeared in stores in September of 1996, it became apparent this was a very different John Mellencamp than we had become accustomed to. Mr. Happy Go Lucky was heralded as a daring and reactionary album of an artist who had faced death only to come back and completely reinvent himself. While I agree with each of these conjectures, I find this album to be a largely unsatisfying listening experience. It was a necessary voyage for Mellencamp and I remember being in awe at the way the widescreen sonic backbeats spared from the stereo, but I felt as if something was missing. In place of Kenny Aronoff's driving drums were calculated programmed back beats, while current and cool�left most listeners in the cold. The album is an unbelievable prodigious excursion down the road less traveled, but there is one underlying problem with all of this; at its core, Mr. Happy Go Lucky isn't a John Mellencamp album. Instead of soaring pop melodies and four chord guitar riffs, Mellencamp purposely was trying to make a record that you could dance to. I'm not really sure if he succeeded but what I do know is that after a solid decade of revisiting this album time and time again, it is an esteemed excursion.

The lead track, "Jerry" attacks you with impressive layered instrumentation that works for setting the stage of the record and is followed by the monstrous lead single, "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)". The evocative tunnel you enter when single kicks in is possibly one of my twenty-five favorite songs of the last fifteen years. Love or hate John Mellencamp, he has one career defining single on every album. "Just Another Day", the album's second single is a tuneful departure and a success as Mellencamp, at this point, appears to have created an album that defines who he is as an artist while simultaneously pushing himself out of his comfort zone. However, the rest of the album is a disjointed affair. From "This May Not Be The End of the World" to the album's final well meaning track, "Life Is Hard" one gets the impression that Mellencamp spent more time on the music, instead of the lyrics. Distortion-orchestra guitars paired with hip-hop beats, while fascinating to listen to, don't warrant repeat listens. The themes and stories he tells here are fascinating but they lack emotional and lyrical depth of his previous work. The bravado that soaked his songs between '82 and '94 is sadly missing here. "Circling Around The Moon" and "Large World Turning" are as bombastic as their titles suggest and while the songs are lyrically amongst Mellencamp's best, they would probably have shined brighter in a refined rustic arrangement. "Life Is Hard" is a wonderful mash-up encompassing bashing beats, but ultimately the lyrics are domestic and monotonous.

The one track from the album's latter half that permeates a whiff of oomph is "The Full Catastrophe" with its intense electric vibe and Middle Eastern flavor featuring an architecture of restorative and syncopated sounds. Mellencamp was not a stranger to monolithic layers of music, but instead of R&B, blues and roots music, Mr. Happy Go Lucky is drowned out by undistinguished beats and banal clatter and remains an admirable misstep.

John Mellencamp (1998)

After close to two decades with Mercury/Polygram, Mellencamp decided to jump ship for what he thought would be a more artist focused label in Sony. Ironically, Sony dropped the ball and his latest rebirth, the self-titled John Mellencamp released in October 1998, didn't even crack the Top-40, it debuted at #41 and dropped from there. Record labels weren't the only change for Mellencamp in 1998. John Mellencamp would be the first album in close to two decades recorded without drummer Kenny Aronoff who was the one constant and in my opinion the defining element of Mellencamp's core sound. John Mellencamp is the antithesis of Mr. Happy Go Lucky; a more musically coherent album with the acoustic guitar leading the way. Despite a return to his roots, it once again lacks the emotional depth of his previous work. It also lacks the bigger than life backbeat that Kenny Aronoff provided for so many years. This was the first album Mellencamp had recorded without Aronoff in nearly two-decades and it shows. What was supposed to be a creative rebirth proved to be a misfire.

The album while admirable lacks focus. Songs like "Positively Crazy" is a restrained brooding ballad, but the lyrics feel lethargic even if the production is nothing short of magnificent. The narrative "It All Comes True" is reminiscent of Richard Marx's "Hazard" but is a pale comparison. "Break Me Off Some" sounds like an outtake from Mr. Happy Go Lucky but is ultimately a throw away track. "Summer of Love" has a title that jumps out at you thinking it would be quintessential Mellencamp, but it's not. "Days of Farewell" end this downbeat album on a sour and uninspiring note. The spiritual renewal and exploration he evoked so magically on "When Jesus Left Birmingham" is devoid here. This is where an outside producer would have come in handy and possibly guided Mellencamp to push himself, rewrite the song or beg Kenny Aronoff back into the studio.

The album is not quite as bleak as I've made it out to be. The two singles, "Your Life Is Now" and "I'm Not Running Anymore" are quintessential Mellencamp. "Miss Missy" has a boogie stomp and harp blowing that makes you smile endearingly while "Where The World Began" is the album's intransigent track which embodies Mellencamp at his best. "Chance Meeting At The Tarantula" is a new discovery and why I love Idiot Guides to artists where I'm forced to reacquaint myself with the entire catalog. I had overlooked the mystical track for close to a decade before revisiting this album proving that we're all guilty of overlooking gems on albums. His self-titled rebirth is by no means a bad album, but it's a drifting, alienating and mixed affair at best.

Rough Harvest (1999)

When Mellencamp left Mercury Records in 1997, part of the deal was that he deliver two Greatest Hits records. To this day, I will never understand the release of The Best That I Could Do, as it only covered his career through 1987 and only utilized 58-minutes of disc space. The rumor was Mellencamp's contract agreement for a "Hits" record only extended to the material through 1987-oh to have been the lawyer who negotiated that one. However, to cover the second volume, Mellencamp chose the road less traveled, got creative and released a disc full of revelatory acoustic reworkings of some of his preeminent material and a few covers. Aside from three Scarecrow tracks, the rest of the songs are culled from his 1989 to 1996 songbook and provides one a look at the other side of many classic deep cuts that people have largely disregarded.

The real standouts on the collection are "Between A Laugh And A Tear" and "Minutes To Memories". With an artist like John Mellencamp, we get too comfortable with the contagious and familiar FM hits and let a song like "Between A Laugh & A Tear" escape from our memory. The luscious rendering here is restrained and transcendent with a haunting vocal, a pristine acoustic guitar and a hint of eeriness in the background. This isn't just the best track on Rough Harvest but is one of the definitive songs of Mellencamp's career. "Minutes To Memories" showcases a raw electric guitar while the violin is embroidered with refinement that stands right next to the studio version. "Key West Intermezzo" shines with a melancholy arrangement while the "Rain On The Scarecrow"' features a more restrained and rustic performance that I think demonstrates what a spectacular visionary Mellencamp and long time guitarist and co-producer Mike Wanchic truly are.

Rough Harvest also showcases two ingenious covers, Bob Dylan's "Farewell To Angelina" and the traditional "In My Time of Dying" which encompasses the same themes found throughout most of Mellencamp's material over his entire career. The album concludes with a live cut of "Wild Night" and the studio version of "Under The Boardwalk", an infamous B-side. These minimal yet potent arrangements allow the songs to breathe while the lyrics shine proving that Mellencamp's output is far weightier than anyone gives him credit for. This is easily the greatest alternate path any mainstream artist has ever done for a contract fulfillment.