When Mellencamp left Indiana to seek fame and fortune, he headed to New York City. Mellencamp was enough of a glam-rocker that he named his early band Trash, after a New York Dolls song. When his first wife’s parents finally kicked him out of the house, Mellencamp decided it was time to leave town. His father was the vice president of an electric company, but Mellencamp himself was a black-sheep-type, a teenage father and college dropout. Mellencamp really was born in a small town - Seymour, Indiana, just outside Bloomington. “Jack And Diane,” Mellencamp’s sole #1 hit, is a sharp, well-observed story-song about broke go-nowhere kids in Middle America, but it’s also a big, stomping studio-created jam, the end result of a whole lot of canny decisions. Mellencamp knew how to sell himself, and he should give himself some credit for his top-40 instincts. Mellencamp’s anti-image working-class-hero pose made for a great image, and his big hits were, by and large, gleaming pop songs. Anyone paying attention should’ve seen that Mellencamp was really the next Bruce Springsteen, or at least the closest thing that the ’80s pop universe could cough up.) He loves to talk about how the music business didn’t want his realness.īut what Mellencamp never mentions is that he was a truly great pop product, a guy who was able to cut right through the noise in the early MTV years. Mellencamp loves to complain about how his first manager made him change his name to Johnny Cougar, or how his label wanted him to be the next Neil Diamond. Johnny became a big rock ‘n’ roll staaaar by making records you could sing in your car.įor years and years, John Mellencamp has held himself up as an avatar of some sort of mythical rock ‘n’ roll authenticity, a growly working-class brawler who brought his sweaty roots music to America’s arenas when they most needed it. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.Ī little blog piece about John Mellencaaaaamp, an American kid who got famous when he gave his sound a revamp.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |