Almost To Mellencamp4 Out Of 5 Stars
John Cougar became a success when "American Fool" became his first major commercial and critical success. having been saddled with the "Cougar" name and hating it ever since, for the follow-up "Uh-Huh" album, John used his growing clout to begin emancipating his real name and, in essence, what he thought he wanted to be as an artist. John Cougar Mellencamp (and the second to last time "Cougar" would appear on one of his albums) established himself on this album as both a first class songwriter and a purebred American Rocker.
The music is still duking it out between Springsteen and The Rolling Stones (dig that Keth Richards riff on "Serious Business"), but he was also looking more at the grown up world that "Jack and Diane" were growing into. "Pink Houses" (also here as an acoustic bonus version) remains one of Mellencamp's finest four minutes, with its darkly ironic look at an American Dream gone stuck under a freeway. He'd tear into that vein fully when "Scarecrow" would arrive with its hard look at middle America. For the bulk of "Uh-Huh," though, Mellencamp wanted to kick out the jams.
The three rocking highlights were "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song" and "Play Guitar." Mellencamp and his crack band - especially guitarist Larry Crane and drummer Kenny Aronoff - had honed their skills to a bludgeoning power that made the guitar heavy tracks crackle like prime Stones. Mellencamp was still working through the kinks of his songwriting, which meant the album starts to sputter towards the end (and on the particularly passable "Jackie O"). But as far as his creative juice was concerned, Mellencamp was rapidly closing in on 100% proof.
No comments:
Post a Comment