On the Rural Route 7609 (2010)
Disc One
1. Longest Days
2. Grandma's Theme
3. Rural Route
4. Jackie Brown
5. Rain on the Scarecrow
6. Jim Crow (Spoken)
7. Jim Crow
8. Big Daddy of Them All
9. Deep Blue Heart
10.Forgiveness
11.Don't Need This Body
12.Jenny at 16
13.Jack and Diane (Writing Demo)
14.Jack and Diane
Disc Two
1. The Real Life (Spoken)
2. Ghost Towns Along the Highway
3. The Full Catastrophe
4. Authority Song (Writing Demo)
5. Troubled Land
6. To Washington
7. Our Country
8. Country Gentleman
9. Freedom's Road
10.Mr. Bellows
11.Rodeo Clown
12.Love and Happiness
13.Pink Houses
Disc Three
1. If I Die Sudden
2. Someday
3. Between a Laugh and a Tear
4. Void in My Heart
5. Death Letter
6. Sugar Marie
7. Theo and Weird Henry
8. When Jesus Left Birmingham
9. L.U.V.
10.Thank You
11.Women Seem
12.The World Don't Bother Me None
13.Cherry Bomb (Writing Demo)
14.Some Day the Rains Will Fall
15.A Ride Back Home
Disc Four
1. My Aeroplane
2. Colored Lights
3. Just Like You
4. Young Without Lovers
5. To M.G. (Wherever She May Be)
6. Sweet Evening Breeze
7. What If I Came Knocking
8. County Fair
9. Peaceful World
10.Your Life is Now
11.For the Children
12.Rural Route
 
When a well established artist puts
out a "box set" well into their career, the expectations are that the
compilation will either be a) chocked filled with hits, b) filled with
rarities and alternate versions or c) probably a combination of both.
What John Mellencamp was trying to do on this one isn't any of the
above, and what he was really trying to do is beyond me.
As usual, Mellencamp is bitter about a lot of things, and by this stage
in his career, he basically dismissed his earlier, rock-heavy phase
(i.e. his most popular) of his career. Audiences that saw him in
concert wanted to reminisce in the glory years of his past, but he
didn't want any part of it. It shouldn't come as too big of a surprise,
then, when this collection contains mostly newer stuff. Now, he had a
lot of good stuff later in his career, but you really wouldn't
know that by a lot of the choices he picks for the compilation. It's
almost like he's pissed off (surprise, surprise) that his later records
didn't sell, so he's forcing them on us again.
What's weird is that there are times when he includes some nice rough
demos of his early, popular songs such as The Authority Song and
Cherry Bomb, but doesn't include the actual songs
themselves. There are a couple of nice spots. He has a guest,
African-American artist read the lyrics to Jim Crow before
the actual song, and this does work. It works mainly because
hearing the lyrics read has a stronger emphasis on the meaning of the
song, and the song itself is one of the stronger ones here. Other
times, though, he will have someone read the lyrics (as on The Real
Life) but then, again, not include the cotton pickin' song. What
exactly was he thinking??
The "number" in the title is supposed to be a reference to when the
songs were done (1976 - 2009), yet his early stuff is virtually ignored,
so this is very misleading. Sure, it was good the John Mellencamp was
always a "rebel", but when you're expecting your fans to shell out a lot
of money, they shouldn't be misled into what they're getting. One would
hope that the fan will take several minutes to read the actual titles on
this package before committing a large sum of money.
Go back to the main page
Go To Next Review