In Defense of John Mellencamp

The crop of nominees for next year's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is, to say the least, rather dodgy. The list includes disco queen Donna Summer, hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaata, rappers the Beastie Boys and funksters Chic...none of which are deserving of taking up space in the "rock" hall. Leonard Cohen is a critic's darling and a fascinatingly literary songwriter, but his somber material and droning vocals skew closer to folk than rock for this edifice. As for Madonna, well...as Syl Sylvain of the New York Dolls says in Martin Popoff's book Ye Olde Metal: 1973 To 1975, "Madonna has never recorded a rock 'n' roll record..."

This leaves us with the Ventures, the Dave Clark Five and John Mellencamp as viable, potential candidates to vote into the hall. All three have their merits...the Ventures were, perhaps, the most popular instrumental band of the '60s, but their influence on rock music - except for in Japan, where they sold millions of records - is questionable. I've long considered them more of a pop band, especially since their bread-and-butter in the latter part of the decade was cranking out imaginative instrumental versions of hit songs and TV themes. Personally, I'd pass on voting the Ventures into the hall.

So how about the Dave Clark Five? A band remembered mostly by aficionados of early-60s rock, this British band was second only to the Beatles among the "Invasion" bands, and for three years, circa 1964-67, the DC5 scored more than a dozen Top 40 singles. The band never changed with the times, however, gliding through the latter-part of the decade on their reputation and finally breaking up in 1970. The DC5 has its cult, but unlike other Invasion-era bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Kinks, they never evolved beyond their (brief) days as a veritable hit machine, and when the hits stopped coming, not many outside the band really cared. Whatever influence the Dave Clark Five once had on rock music has largely been forgotten, forty years later. Still, given the paucity of this year's nominee list, I'd probably give the DC5 a provisional vote.

Which, in a round about way, brings us around to the final nominee, "Johnny Cougar" Mellencamp, for consideration - no other popular artist has been so unfairly maligned. Beginning his career as an unintentional carbon-copy of Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen (with a dash of glammed-up Dylanism for flavor), the unfortunately-named "Johnny Cougar" was the target of many critics' slings-and-arrows. From his first album, Chestnut Street Incident, which was released in 1976, through 1980's Nothing Matters And What If It Did, Mellencamp continued to grow and evolve as an artist, scoring a few minor chart hits along the way.

It's what Mellencamp accomplished during the decade of the '80s that should earn him a coveted spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. By the time of the release of 1982's American Fool album, Mellencamp already had five albums and numerous tours under his belt. However, nobody expected his startling transformation from marginal pop/rock artist (in the vein of Bryan Adams) into a tried-and-true heartland rocker, and American Fool began a string of hits that continued into the 21st century. Reinforcing my belief that Mellencamp is underappreciated, San Francisco Chronicle critic Joel Selvin says of Mellencamp's hall nomination, "he's like a solid shortstop who had a long, productive career without ever winning a batting championship or home run title. Never hit the long ball."

But let's take a look at Selvin's "long ball" theory, shall we? According to the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry organization that hands out sales certifications, Mellencamp has sold over 27 million records, more than prior Hall of Fame inductees the Police, the Who, ZZ Top, Creedence Clearwater Revival and R.E.M., to name but a few. Two of Mellencamp's albums - American Fool and Scarecrow - are among the Top 100 best-selling albums of all time, both certified for 5 million units in sales. Here's how Mellencamp's sales shore up during the '80s:

Nothing Matters And What If It Did (1980) N/A 1 million sold

American Fool (1982) #96 5 million sold

Uh-Huh (1983) #9 3 million sold

Scarecrow (1985) #2 5 million sold

Lonesome Jubilee (1987) #6 3 million sold

Big Daddy (1989) #7 1 million sold

Some two-thirds of Mellencamp's album sales came during the decade of the '80s, when he was at his highest profile, touring the country and organizing and performing on the Farm Aid shows in the latter part of the decade. Mellencamp's '80s-era albums charted consistently, too, as shown by the Billboard Top 200 albums chart positions shown above. While American Fool sold slowly but surely on the strength of its two hit singles, "Jack & Diane" and "Hurts So Good," taking years to move its millions of copies, subsequent releases sold faster and climbed higher on the charts. Along the way, Mellencamp enjoyed a string of fourteen Top 20 hit singles, beginning with the songs from American Fool. His videos were ubiquitous on MTV during the decade, and Mellencamp also enjoyed some crossover success on the Country and Adult Contemporary charts during the latter years.

Health problems during the decade of the '90s kept Mellencamp from touring as prolifically as he had during the '80s, but he retained a degree of relevance even in the face of the rapidly-changing musical currents created by grunge and alt-rock. Beginning with Whenever We Wanted (1991), his first album of the decade, Mellencamp released a total of five albums during the '90s, each one selling at least a million copies and four of them charting no worse than #17 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. More recently, Cuttin' Heads, Mellencamp's 2001 album, sold a half-million copies and was certified Gold™ in sales.

However, sales numbers, in and of themselves, shouldn't be a sole factor when considering an artist for the hall. If sales were all that mattered, then Ms. Ciccone would be a shoe-in for induction. Although he was dismissed as merely another "new Springsteen" in the early years of his career - as sure an albatross as Springsteen suffered when he was considered a "new Dylan" at the start of his career - Mellencamp has since earned a hard-fought battle for respect and admiration from critics. His commercial success allowed the artist to drop the hated "Cougar" from his name, reinventing himself as simply "John Mellencamp." Along the way, he also reinvented his music to incorporate elements of Appalachian folk, traditional country and roots rock into the mix.

Beginning with the populist worldview evinced on Scarecrow, Mellencamp also displayed an evolution in his songwriting - I deny anybody to question the power and the glory of "Rain On The Scarecrow," a song as hard-hitting and political as anything released by either Dylan or Springsteen. By returning to his roots, Mellencamp found his voice, writing about the rustbelt Midwest he knew and grew up in, his affinity for farmers, blue collar factory grunts and small towns earned him an audience that was as large as anybody's at the time. Albums like The Lonesome Jubilee and Big Daddy continued Mellencamp's creative evolution, matching imaginative music and odd traditional instrumentation with his lyrical ideas expressed more clearly and succinctly than ever. Beginning with Scarecrow, Mellencamp's albums have all received overwhelming praise from the critical community.

In 2003, Mellencamp released the critically-acclaimed Trouble No More, an album of (mostly) covers performed in a bluesy, rootsy vein. The album provided a brief return to the upper region of the charts for Mellencamp, hitting #31 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart and topping the magazine's Top Blues Albums chart. Trouble No More brought the singer full-circle, as his '80s-era roots-rock had an immeasurable influence on the Americana musical movement as well as rock and country music.

Mellencamp has come under fire for the commercial tie-ins afforded his recent release Freedom's Road, the once fiercely anti-corporate artist seemingly "selling out" in his old age. Sure, Mellencamp has dismissed these criticisms in interviews, but the fact remains that he basically sold a song to Chevy for a TV commercial, an act that chafes old farts such as myself but is meaningless to a younger generation weaned on iPod commercials. It's amazing to me that, even at this late date, Mellencamp is still considered both an utterly commercial artist as well as a relative commercial failure. As Bill Holdship, former Creem magazine editor and current Detroit Metro Times Music Editor points out, the argument has even spilled over to the controversy surrounding the publication of the recent Creem book.

The first and only time that I met John Mellencamp, performing at the Grand Ole Opry House in the late-80s, he was a bit of a dick backstage. He put on a hell of a show, though, and it's safe to say that nobody left the venue feeling cheated. In my mind, there is no question about Mellencamp's place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. For his consistent popularity over two-and-a-half decades; his run of hit singles and million-selling albums; his evolution and experimentation as an artist and songwriter; his influence on a generation of subsequent roots-oriented artists; and for his overall undeniable contributions to the culture of rock music, Mellencamp deserves his induction into the hall.