My Amazon Reviews: John Mellencamp "No Better Than This"

No Better, Really
2 Out Of 5 Stars

Back in 2008, I gave John Mellencamp's "Life Death Love and Freedom" a four star rating. He mixed up his styles enough to keep the disc from becoming flat, and added a few hopeful songs like "My Sweet Love." A few years later and that hope is sucked clean out of "No Better Than This." Recorded in mono at several classic locations (mainly Sun Studios in Memphis), Mellencamp is going for a starker sound than before, even more bare bones that "Life Death" or his madly underrated "Big Daddy." It's just that, as spartan as the CD is, the songs aren't all that memorable or inspiring. He may want to be a classical folkie, but it just isn't there. You can record in Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, TX, where Robert Johnson recorded "Stones in My Passway" in 1936, but that doesn't mean you've been to the crossroads.

The idea of the CD is interesting enough; Mellencamp recorded "No Better Than This" while touring with one microphone, directly onto a vintage Ampex 601 tape recorder, no remixing or overdubs. It does give the album a sense of immediacy, but not warmth. Just because you're making an album the way Johnny Cash or the rest of the Sun studio cats, he's still Mellencamp. Some of the songs are vintage lyrical Mellencamp, like "No One Cares About Me," the closing "Clumsy Ol' World" and the bar brawl that he narrates in "Easter Eve." It's just me, but I really yearned to hear Mellencamp do "Clumsy Ol' World" and maybe "Save Some Time For Me" with a full band and in a modern setting.

As it is, "No Better Than This" can't elevate itself to more than a curiosity in Mellencamp's storied discography, and you have to hand it to the man, he's long ago decided he's going to follow his muse to any place it leads him. Having pretty much given up on rock and roll, "No Better Than This" will likely only please die-hard Mellencamp followers, extreme folkies, or lovers of what T-Bone Burnette does to artists when he turns his producer's cap towards stripping his subjects musically naked.