No Better Than This (2010)
1. Save Some Time to Dream
2. The West End
3. Right Behind Me
4. A Graceful Fall
5. No Better Than This
6. Thinking About You
7. Coming Down the Road
8. No One Cares About Me
9. Love at First Sight
10.Don't Forget About Me
11.Each Day of Sorrow
12.Easter Eve
13.Clumsy Ol' World
 
It's one thing when an artist makes a
statement that they wish to "go back to their roots" and maybe record
songs that have a bit of an old flavor to them. It's something
completely different when an artist pulls out all of the stops
and not only uses fifty year old equipment to preserve the antiquity and
spirit, but even makes the recording in some historic locales in the
places of music history and then even adds the same flavor to the packaging of
the release as well.
About the only thing you might say is missing is that none of the songs,
themselves, are old chestnuts - they're all freshly newly written by
Mellencamp himself. Strangely, this turns into an advantage (a very big
one) since Mellencamp is so gifted in the areas of musicianship, that
you would never have known that these were written by a guy in the
second decade of the 21st century. These songs beautifully capture the
feeling of country-western, rockabilly, americana, etc. that were in
vogue long before Mellencamp was even born.
His personality and singing voice are perfect for this type of
record - a bit more of a twang in his voice and you would swear that
this could have fit right at home at The Grand Ole Opry back in the late
1940's. His writing style for these tracks is simple, unassuming and
pretty downright believable as he sings (often in first person) of the
unfortunate and downtrodden. This isn't (fortunately) a political
album, but the characters in these songs are victims of the small town
angst in rural America that could be in any time in history, yet
as mentioned, we feel as though we're witnessing characters in old
black-and-white newsreels that hung out with our grandparents.
Unlike the songs that these mirror from decades ago, these are quite
lengthy, a couple even over six minutes in length. They never seem
long, though. The album itself runs a bit long, and there are a few
tracks here that bog down the collection and you wish that maybe he
would have left off of the album. Like most of Mellencamp's latter
records, he succeeds once again in exploring new territories.
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