{"id":41076,"date":"2008-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/life-death-love-and-freedom-2\/"},"modified":"2008-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-01T00:00:00","slug":"life-death-love-and-freedom-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/life-death-love-and-freedom-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Death Love And Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were hoping the new John Mellencamp release would have a sequel to \u201cIndependence Day 1985\u201d or any of the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll tunes on the best Mellencamp album ever, 1985\u2019s Scarecrow, <\/i>you are bound to be disappointed with Life, Death, Love And Freedom. <\/i>There is only one upbeat song to be found here, lead single “My Sweet Love.” The rest of the material is a James Taylor-inspired Mellencamp singing about death with an acoustic guitar. Most of the songs on this release do not have drums — a shame, as Mellencamp\u2019s drummer Kenny Aronoff is a monster musician.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Instead, this album is a humble, introspective excursion into growing old, starting off with the mellow opener, \u201cLonger Days.\u201d When I first started listening to the album, I found this to be a terrible opener; I wanted a declaration with some energy. Instead, you get Mellencamp singing, \u201cSometimes you get sick and you don\u2019t get better \/ Life is short even in its longest days.\u201d Mellencamp should have launched things off with \u201cMy Sweet Love,\u201d an energy-driven rock n\u2019 roll cut with a mesmerizing tom-tom pattern that is played throughout.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The songs are decidedly blues-influenced as well: In “If I Die Sudden,” Mellencamp sings, “Don’t be callin’ no minister \/ I don’t need one around \/ My grandmother told me she’d be waiting at the gates.” The music is played hauntingly, with the intimate feel of a group playing blues on a porch. “Troubled Land” meanwhile talks about wanting to bring “peace to this troubled land\u2026Hurricane on the horizon \/ Judgment getting closer all the time.” There’s that fixation with death again.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Mellencamp dives deeper into his own mortality on “County Fair,” where he begins by describing a stereotypical fair. Then, he says that it was about two in the morning and a guy came up to him, declared that he remembered Mellencamp, and then stabbed him. After stating, \u201cAnd I died that night,\u201d Mellencamp goes on to sing, \u201cSo be careful where you go and what you say and do.”<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It is songs like “County Fair” that announce the full maturation of John Mellencamp as an artist. There is sophistication in all of this material, and while it is a moody album, its material takes you on a journey that is overall a good one to take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5703],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41076","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-mellencamp","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41076"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}