Credit: Far Out / John Mellencamp
Tue 25 August 2026 22:00, UK
John Mellencamp is an interesting artist.
Obviously, I don’t mean musically, but you’ve got to admit that it’s kind of fascinating how he has carved out such a career, built such a name for himself, ingratiated himself with so many legends and stuck around so long without really being all that good at anything in particular.
His voice isn’t much to write home about; he always sounded like he was straining to sound like Bruce Springsteen, but he never made it beyond sounding like a micro-managing shift supervisor in comparison to Springsteen’s standing as ‘The Boss’.
His lyrics are fine, and occasionally they’re even brilliant (“Nothing lasts forever, your best efforts don’t always pay / Sometimes you get sick and you don’t get better / That’s when life is short, even in its longest days”), but his music and arrangements that support those words are so often bland, stodgy and lifeless. Straight-ahead and down-the-line, sure, but hardly ever all that exciting (though ‘Lonely ‘Ol Night’ is something of an exception).
And that nickname? John ‘Cougar’ Mellencamp? Come on. Is it really any wonder that Jakob Dylan called him an asshole during a show in Indiana a couple of years back, before adding “That motherfucker is such a prick”?
However, I’ll say this for him, alongside his occasional bursts of self-awareness (“You think I’m an asshole now, you should have seen me when I was drunk”), that guy sure has always had a good head of hair.
And, it seems, he’s developed a better sense of himself as he’s aged, recently conceding that “I’m not for everyone anymore”. There was a time when he was for everyone, though; universally beloved by the Heartland rock masses in America, when he was touted as the next big thing and a keeper of the flame lit by people like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and John Fogerty.
It wasn’t just his peers who were riding the Cougar Express. His 1982 album American Fool went all the way to number one in the charts, going platinum five times over in the process, while each of the rest of his releases in the ’80s comfortably landed in the top ten. Even with all those sales, the endorsements from his heroes, and with 13 Grammy nominations to his name over the years (one win), in the days when he was for everyone, he was still always his own biggest fan.
Further reading: From The Vault
Talking about the song ‘Between a Laugh and a Tear’ from his 1985 release Scarecrow, which made it as high as number two in the charts, he’s said that “there’s a great line in this song, ‘I know there’s a balance / I see it when I swing past.’ I suffered severely from panic disorders and anxiety around this time. Still do. I’m also very excitable and get angry very quickly. This was the peak of my success, but I didn’t enjoy any of it.” (You and me both, Cougar.)
I guess that really comes back to what’s so interesting about John ‘Cougar’ Mellencamp in the first place. Back when he was making music that everybody seemed to love, he wasn’t enjoying himself, but now his shows are dividing opinions, getting mixed reviews and lukewarm receptions, and he seems to be enjoying himself more than ever. He knows there’s a balance there somewhere, but when he sees it, he just swings right on past.
