by Phil Dotree

Created on: February 08, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

CLOUT INDEX
Hey, America! Do you like corn? Do you like farming?

John Mellencamp's hoping you do. He's attempting to return to form with his latest album, Freedom's Road, a glance back into '80s rock if there ever was one.

Mellencamp, or Cougar, or John, or whatever the hell you want to call him, is back in the music biz, and with a commercial for a truck getting massive play time, he's obviously thinking that he has a chance to make up for lost time.

Not so much.

Freedom's Road has all the allure of a fat guy at a racetrack; it's loud, obnoxious, stereotypical, but damned American if anything ever was. Mellencamp fills each song with wide drums, gospel choirs and the simple chord progressions and lyrics that made him a star in the first place with songs like "Little Pink Houses." He's got some light political angst going on; the Bush administration pisses him off, as he belts out in "Rodeo Clown," but his lyrics are banal enough to be brutally non-affective. He ain't Dylan; he's not even Donovan, and when he attempts to step up to the political plate he falls flat (though to be fair, a country-rocker representing the blue states is something of a fresh idea) .

"I like my heroes to be honest and strong," Mellencamp croons during The Americans, the most puke-inducing of the tracks here. "I respect you, and your point of view!" he says later. He's not trying to be ironic or sarcastic; he really, really wants to give the impression that he's an American of the Woody Guthrie persuasion, but something doesn't click.

There's no doubt that there's a certain charm to John Mellencamp's kitschy gospel-drenched Americana anthems, but at this point in his career he's lost a lot of his initial flair and he's left sounding embarrassingly exploitative. Each song sounds like a retread of the last one, and the central themes get drilled into your head often enough that you might actually grow an American flag out of your chest just from listening to this album. Even worse, he's not being genuine; nobody who greenlights a piece of garbage like This Is Our Country can really believe what he's trying to say.

Mellencamp's past his prime, and this vain attempt to reach back to his former glory isn't a step forward; it's a really long step back, and it's doubtful that the singer's ever going to make his way back to where he was. When the last twang of slide guitar rings out, you'll breathe a sigh of relief; a Mellencamp comeback isn't in the cards this year. Let's hope we can hold him off another decade or so.

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