| True story: John Mellencamp lives in Hilton Head, SC and his daughter is friends with my sister-in-law. His daughter was pregnant before she graduated high school and all she does is complain about how tough it is to be rich and be the daughter of a famous dude. Meanwhile, apparently John Mellencamp has tried numerous times to toss his daughter out but keeps taking her back even though she's shiftless. Not that any of this has anything to do with the record, but I think it's kind of an interesting side note about where Mellencamp comes from, what he's doing now, and what happens to the daughters and sons of famous people. Apparently they all turn out exactly the same. |
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| The review is wrong in my opinion. The lyrics
perfectly fit where we are in time: a time when
Americans should be coming together for the sake of
the country. You also conveniently ignored the song
"Freedom's Road," which is a wonderful tale about
how freedom does come with potential hazards. And it
is a very rootsy album: certainly NOT a generic
Mellencamp album. |
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| mvdu76, I'm not saying (or not meaning to say, at least) that Mellencamp's lyrics don't "perfectly fit where we are in time," but that doesn't make them interesting, or non-clichéd. As for the music, much of which I like, it seems to me that a "generic Mellencamp album" is precisely "a very rootsy album." That's what he does these days, for better and worse. |
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| I have not listened to this album. But just off the amount of times ive had to listen to Our Country during football commercials this year is enough for me to hate Mellencamp forever. |
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| I have no intention to listening to the new, irrelevent John Mellencmp album That said, only popular music critics care about lyrics way, way more than the tune. Former journalism majors trying to influence our tastes from the point of view of a wordsmith. Decemberists anyone? Unless the lyrics are particularly awful (James Blunt comes to mind), most care far more what the music sounds like. This is why Rolling Stone has been kissing Dylan's ass for 30+ years. I wish you writers would just once acknowledge your bias. |
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| so is stylus now the place for nasty blind items about the children of celebrities? |
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| boilingboy: I strongly doubt that only "popular music critics" care about lyrics. See this site's article on Interpol lyrics, for one confirmation of my suspicion. |
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| Thanks for the reference on the Interpol lyrics. That boring and stuff line has always bugged me, as well. However, I was referring to instances when the lyrics are the main focus of the review. Interpol's lyrics are tolerable because the songs on Turn On the Bright Lights are so moving....and therefore give the lyrics the benefit of the doubt. |
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