| Product Summary | | Label: OLIVE FILMS | | UPC: 00888072308220 | | Release Date: 7/15/2008 | | Buy.com Sku: 208080639 | | Item#: M469JU | Format:  CD |
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| Song Listing |  |
Disc 1
| | Song Title | Sample | | 1. Longest Days ~ John Mellencamp |  | | 2. My Sweet Love ~ John Mellencamp | | | 3. If I Die Sudden ~ John Mellencamp | | | 4. Troubled Land ~ John Mellencamp | | | 5. Young Without Lovers ~ John Mellencamp | | | 6. John Cockers ~ John Mellencamp | | | 7. Don't Need This Body ~ John Mellencamp | | | 8. Ride Back Home, A ~ John Mellencamp | | | 9. Without A Shot ~ John Mellencamp | | | 10. Jena ~ John Mellencamp | | | 11. Mean ~ John Mellencamp | | | 12. County Fair ~ John Mellencamp | | | 13. For the Children ~ John Mellencamp | | | 14. Brand New Song, A ~ John Mellencamp | |
| John Mellencamp has characterized his new album, Life, Death, Love and Freedom, produced by T Bone Burnett, as a collection of "modern electric folk songs." With backing from his legendary touring band, the album's 14 tracks were recorded at his studio in Bloomington, Indiana and mixed in Los Angeles with Burnett behind the boards for all of the sessions. Mellencamp cites Burnett's production as key to "finding the soul of each song." As far as signing to Hear Music is concerned, he noted, "In today's business environment, each artist needs to pursue his own path and determine what works best. For me, Hear is the right way to go for this album. I'm glad to be working with a team of open minded people who seem to be interested in what the music is about and what it sounds like."
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Lyricist: John Mellencamp. | | Personnel: John Mellencamp (vocals, guitars, acoustic guitar); Andy York (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, resonator guitar, mandolin, percussion, background vocals); T Bone Burnett (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, baritone guitar, 6-string bass); Miriam Sturm (violin); Troye Kinnett (accordion, melodica, piano, organ, field organ, percussion); John Gunnell, Dennis Crouch (upright bass); Dane Clark (drums, hi-hat, maracas, shaker, tabla, tambourine); Mike Piersante (shaker); Janas Hoyt, Mike Wanchic (background vocals). | | Audio Mixer: Mike Piersante. | | Recording information: Belmont Mall, Nashville, IN; Electro Magnetic Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Sound Emporium Studios, Nashville, TN. | | Authors: John Mellencamp; T Bone Burnett. | | Editor: Jason Wormer. | | Photographer: Elaine Mellencamp. | | In stark contrast to the full-on, anthemic quality of his 2007 album, FREEDOM"S ROAD, John Mellencamp's '08 offering is a stark, spare affair. LIFE, DEATH, LOVE AND FREEDOM was overseen by legendary roots-rock producer T-Bone Burnett, and bears some similarity to Burnett's work on the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss '07 album RAISING SAND; there's a subtle, restrained quality to much of the material, and the arrangements tend toward a simple acoustic setup. | | The doomy lo-fi folk/blues of such tunes as the mortality-minded "If I Die Sudden" and "Don't Need This Body" could also be cousins of Bruce Springsteen's dark NEBRASKA tunes. Once in a while, Mellencamp picks things up, as with the rockabilly-like kick of "My Sweet Love," but for the most part, this is a spare, low-key set, its acoustic framework adorned only by occasional dusty touches of spacious electric-guitar reverb, rolling across the barren sonic landscape like errant tumbleweeds. | | After making much of his artistic integrity and opposition to corporate interference for most of his career, John Mellencamp prefaced his previous album, 2007's Freedom's Road, by licensing one of its songs, "Our Country," for use in a television commercial for a truck. The broad exposure for the brief excerpt from the song helped give him his first singles chart entry in eight years, a one-week appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 88; it's not clear how many trucks it may have helped sell. There don't seem to be any songs on Mellencamp's 23rd album, Life Death Love and Freedom, that could be used to sell products. The choruses of songs like "Longest Days" ("Life is short, even in its longest days") and "John Cockers" ("I ain't got no friends") just don't seem to lend themselves to association with shopping of any kind. And maybe that's the point. Mellencamp's second consecutive album to use the word "Freedom" in the title is really the 56-year-old singer/songwriter's reflection on the lack of freedom, along with a life that seems to be almost over, love still idealized (the Buddy Holly-like "odd song out" here, "My Sweet Love"), and death, plenty of death. Musically, Mellencamp seems to have been listening closely to the first five Bob Dylan albums, paying more attention to the first of them, the largely traditional, folk-blues-styled Bob Dylan, than the last, the folk-rock Bringing It All Back Home. "If I Die Sudden," for example, has much of the feel and sound of "In My Time of Dyin'" on Bob Dylan. But unlike the young Dylan, who probably sang such songs without any direct consciousness of his own mortality, the aging Mellencamp, who has survived one heart attack already, brings real conviction to his reflections on death. Unfortunately, he is not much reconciled to it. He looks back regretfully on his heedless youth, and he has the sense not only that he personally has failed to fulfill his promise, but that the world he sees around him has declined instead of improving. "Everything you were after has gone down the drain," he laments in the concluding track, "A Brand New Song." This follows "For the Children," in which he attempted to muster some hope for the next generation, managing the conclusion, "All I can do is my best and be thankful for what we've got." In truth, the forced pessimism of these songs is consistent for an artist who titled an early album Nothin' Matters and What If It Did and sang, in the chorus of his most famous song, "Jack & Diane," "Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone." Now, however, he is able to invest it with an assumption of experienced, mature wisdom. Yet it remains as much about him as it is about the world he sees around him. [Life Death Love and Freedom was the first release to include a disc in the CODE format, a new technology playable on most DVD players.] ~ William Ruhlmann |
Producer: T-Bone Burnett; T-Bone Burnett |
Engineer: Emile Kelman; Matt Andrews; Mike Piersante; Paul Mahern; Emile Kelman; Michael Stucker; Scott Davis |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Associated Artists and Works |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 07/15/2008 | | Original Release Date : 2008 | | Catalog ID : 30822 | | Label : Hear Music (Starbucks) | | Number of Discs : 2 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00888072308220 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.88)
- Ranked #5 in Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums Of 2008 -- "[T]he darkest, most compelling Mellencamp album in years."Entertainment Weekly (p.65)
- "Though he may be contemplating mortality, Mellencamp, with his weathered snarl, still sound remarkably alive." -- Grade: B Dirty Linen (p.52)
- "[T]hanks to Mellencamp's melodies and the musical settings provided by his band and Burnett's lush, spirited production, the songs shine as beacons..." Billboard - "The eight-song album is an honest-to-goodness testament to Mellencamp's longevity, artistry and ability to connect with his audience." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.111)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "Amid producer T Bone Burnett's open prairie sound and aptly distorted guitar moods, Mellencamp croaks a sequence of raw, all but nihilistic yet far from self-pitying first-person tales..." |
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