- Release date:
- July 15, 2008
- Artist/Band name:
- John Mellencamp
- Record label:
- Hear Music
- Official Web Site:
- http://www.mellencamp.com/
Backstory: John Mellencamp is sort of the Billy Joel of heartland rock—a supremely talented tunesmith who takes himself so seriously that, well, he’s hard to take seriously. His career missteps—that awkward “John Cougar Mellencamp” period, licensing the would-be protest anthem “Our Country” to Chevrolet—have tended to overshadow his triumphs, but he’s penned enough indelible anthems (“Jack and Diane,” “Pink Houses,” “The Authority Song”) that his status as one of American rock’s elder statesmen is pretty well assured.
Why you should care: “Life Death Love and Freedom” was produced by T-Bone Burnett, the folk-rock wizard behind the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, as well as Robert Plant’s recent reinvention as a countrified crooner alongside Alison Krauss. If anyone can give Mellencamp a successful late-career makeover, it’s Burnett.
Verdict: If you’ve never been a fan of Mellencamp’s mix of scruffy roots-rock and man-of-the-people proselytizing, his 20th album won’t do much to change your mind. In fact, on tracks like “For the Children” and “Jena” (about the notorious, racially charged “Jena 6” case), he’s never been preachier. But the angry young man railing against the system on “Scarecrow” has been replaced by a reflective, middle-aged singer, full of self-doubt and aware of his own mortality, as songs like “If I Die Sudden” and “Don’t Need This Body” make painfully clear. That newfound vulnerability, combined with Burnett’s moody, luminous production work, make this Mellencamp’s most affecting album in more than a decade.
X-Factor: Every copy of “Life” comes with a bonus DVD featuring the album in a new high-def format called CODE that claims to be “virtually indistinguishable from the original master tapes.” We leave it to the audiophiles to decide if the difference from a standard CD is really that noticeable.
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