Act I: Johnny Cougar

Chestnut Street Incident(1976)
I remember back in the 1980's finding a cassette of this album and enjoying the hell out of it most notably for the fun covers of "Jailhouse Rock", "Twentieth Century Fox" and "(Oh) Pretty Woman" and whenever I found a book that claimed to review every album ever made, I'd look up my favorite artists and Mellencamp was on that list, so whenever I came across the entry for Chestnut Street Incident I was always shocked to see it get one-star…and in some cases, less than one-star. This album was despised and I think I even read one review which claimed this was one of the worse albums ever made. At the time, I thought the writer was being overly harsh; however I was lacking the history of the album's genesis.

By now we've all heard the story of how basically Mellencamp sold his soul to the devil, who in this case happened to be David Bowie's manager, Tony DeFries. Besides christening Mellencamp with the better stage name of "Johnny Cougar" he had Mellencamp churn out an album that was full of half classic rock standards and half original material for MCA. In retrospect Chestnut is a fascinating historical document but nothing more. This is the type of album that record companies to this day still try and force down the public's throat where the artist performing on it is merely a puppet for their dreams of financial glories and sadly, most of these ventures fail. For every *NSYNC and Beyonce, there is a "Johnny Cougar". The album was dismissed even before it could potentially find an impact and Mellencamp was almost immediately dropped from MCA. Despite the ill intentions of DeFries trying to sell something that appeared unoriginal, there are good moments on Chestnut, especially on the track "Dream Killin' Town" which is a template that Mellencamp would expand on later with "Small Town" and other heartland rockers. The melody is solid and the lyrics aren't great, but it's a solid number that could have been re-worked in later years as a more epic track. "American Dream" is another track that deserves more credit than it gets. It's not mind blowing by any means, but there are shades of potential on this album, even if it is widely despised by everyone including Mellencamp. Unfortunately for Mellencamp, DeFries owns the masters and continues to reissue them every few years with "newly discovered" bonus tracks making the die-hard fans continue to line the pockets of a man who almost destroyed Mellencamp's career before it started.

The Kid Inside (1977)
What Chestnut Street Incident had going for it (a lot of rollicking covers) The Kid Inside doesn't. In fact, it almost feels as if there were throwaway tracks from the first album and was scraped up for a quick follow-up release. In truth, I have never been able to confirm that this album was ever actually released in 1977 as every bit of research I have been able to find shows Mellencamp being dropped from MCA immediately following the disaster of Chestnut Street Incident. Whether it was on record shelves or not in 1977 doesn't seem to matter because it's widely available today much to the chagrin of Mellencamp. When I originally found this album on cassette back in 1989, I listened to it once and put it back on the shelf where it remained for all eternity. I eventually picked it up on cd and gave it a few more listens for this review, but even with time on its side, it still doesn't add up to much.

The title track is full of fury, vivacity and confidence which his debut could have used, however, as the album goes on, most tracks are full of forgettable lyrics back by too much macho cockiness ("Take What You Want"). Songs like "Cheap Shot" feel like a Billy Joel outtake five generations removed. The truth is that many of these songs are not as bad as many would lead you to believe, it's just they have some god awful arrangements. "Gearhead" starts out well admirably with a cinematic eeriness until a saxophone comes in from out of nowhere during the chorus completely destroying what it had going for it. A few of these songs, including "Too Young To Live" have some smoldering guitars and grandiose drums, but then a saxophone comes in from out of nowhere making them laughable. The production on these songs is downright horrid (something Bruce Springsteen also experienced on his first two albums). The disappointing aspect of the production value is that many of these songs were not complete throwaways. With a good co-writer and a top flight producer, they could have become something more than a recurring nightmare that won't leave John Mellencamp alone.

A Biography (1978)
After a bad experience with DeFries, Mellencamp (or Cougar depending on how you want to refer to him) went to London where he was fortunately signed to the small label of Riva. He got down to business in London recording A Biography and upon it's release, he scored a minor hit with "I Need A Lover" on the Australian charts. This album was only released internationally and did not see a US release on CD until 2005 when Mellencamp's entire Mercury catalog got a major overhaul. This is the final album to incorporate the name "Johnny Cougar" and of the three that bear this name, it's the best. The album is a solid yet uneven effort, led by the mammoth and epic track, "I Need A Lover" (which is different from the one that would appear a year later on John Cougar as you can hear the drum stick tapping their way before the soaring intro). There were alternate recordings of "I Need A Lover" recorded for this album but they never saw the light of day, even on the 2005 reissue. I'm hoping it shows up on the eventual and long delayed box set Mellencamp has been talking about for years. This album actually has a much rawer edge to it than either of the albums that followed. The guitars are cranked up loud for "Born Reckless" and "Night Slumming" where Cougar is demonstrating his best Rolling Stones impression ala "It's Only Rock N' Roll". "Alley of the Angels" is shooting for the stars like Springsteen did with "Jungleland" and even though Mellencamp comes nowhere near close to capturing the listener's imagination that profoundly, it's still a damn fine tune. The songs on A Biography are crude, under produced and raw, which adds to the albums allure. It shows that as soon as Mellencamp got away from DeFries and the god-awful saxophone solos he did indeed have a knack for music. This is a better album than most would imagine and it rightfully available now for everyone to enjoy even if it's not an essential album.

Come back tomorrow for Act II: the John Cougar Years