And, like, Rolling Stone, there’s the Critics Poll, and then there’s all those advertisements around it.All sales are final. “Nothing against USA Today,” he says, “but that’s what people want - ‘Let’s cut to the chase, give me the dirt.’ This is our generation doing this. The trivializing of rock & roll is a problem he sees in the media as well. Mellencamp’s uncompromising stance against corporate sponsorship has made him feel anomalous in an age when even esteemed figures like Lou Reed, Steve Winwood, Robert Plant and Eric Clapton have hawked products. I’m thinking, ‘Man, there’s a thousand guys that sold out - use their name, don’t use mine, like I’m a second-rate artist’ And he did, and it was like ‘Well, thanks, bub. “He says, ‘Well, it was a good record, but it was like a John Mellencamp record.’ It wasn’t what they should have been doing. “There was a writer who likes my music - I know this guy - and I’m reading one of his articles about another artist, right?” Mellencamp says. You’re young forever.’ But what happens when you don’t want to be young anymore? When the fascination of being a young man has left you?”įarm Aid Coming to Indiana With Neil Young, Bob Weir, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson Some people would say, ‘Well, then, hell, you’ve got it made, man. “I’m living the dream of a nineteen-year-old boy from Indiana,” he continues, “and I’m thirty-seven years old. I hate to say this, but I feel like what John Lennon must have felt: I don’t want to be in this race anymore, because it leads to nowhere. As I sit here every day, I just become at total odds with my generation, too. “At thirty-seven years old, I am at total odds with the pop business,” Mellencamp says. Rock & roll was tough, Dionysiac and serious pop music was light and frivolous. Also, in Mellencamp’s younger years pop music was a term that stood in direct opposition to rock & roll. Unfortunately, going after something doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it will be what you thought it would be once you get it. There’s no doubting that Mellencamp - the product of a pre-punk world in which bigger was better and it was assumed that rock & roll stars were supposed to be popular - ardently pursued mass success and occasionally made a fool of himself in the process. The bitterness that courses through the album’s first single, “Pop Singer,” in which Mellencamp excoriates the music industry and declares, “Never wanted to be no pop singer,” is palpable - and some say hypocritical. Growing up as a hell raiser in a small town, playing in rock bands through your teens and landing a record deal in your early twenties are not great incentives to the contemplative life.Įvery Awful Thing Trump Has Promised to Do in a Second TermĪs his raw, poignant new album, Big Daddy, indicates, Mellencamp’s mood has swung into darkness. He is full of questions - about his own identity, about the pop-culture world that envelops him, about the life he has led to this point - and that makes him extremely uncomfortable. Mellencamp is looking at the big picture these days (“Is Madonna happy?” - now there’s a puzzle worthy of a Zen master), and he doesn’t like what he sees. We put him down so bad that he feels he has to make a statement about it. I wonder about Michael Jackson’s happiness. Every time I’ve been around him, he’s been a blue-chip fella to me, right? But I wonder about his happiness. Mellencamp takes a pull on one of his ever-present Marlboros and continues. “Think so? I think the record was great - that has nothing to do with it I wonder if he’s the same guy he used to be. Was Bruce Springsteen really successful with Born in the U.S.A.?” asks John Cougar Mellencamp one crisp spring afternoon in Bloomington, Indiana.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |