Rain On the ScarePOLL - The John Mellencamp "Scarecrow" Poll

I'll admit I haven't heard any of his most recent albums because I grew to loathe "Our Country" when it was in a Chevy truck commercial every five minutes for a year or more.

was gonna say "Los Lobos didn't have Kenny Aronoff"

WWW's "Get a Leg Up" is one of his best singles. The guitars are fierce.

Ugh, forgot about that fucking Chevy ad. It was particularly annoying because Mellencamp had been previously been pretty vocal about never allowing any of his songs to be licensed for ads.

he started to become respectable w/ uh-huh, it was consolidated by lonesome jubilee (i might be revisionist on uh-huh there, i remember it placed highest in rolling stones decade end list, but it didn't place in pnj that year while scarecrow and lonesome jubilee placed pretty high). big daddy relatively flopped and he took what seemed like an insane amount of time (for him at least) off before whenever we wanted which felt like him reaching back to that american fool sound on his own terms (which reminds me i never hear 'get a leg up' anymore really). you might be right about 'human wheels' relative success, it charts high on mainstream rock chart but not on hot 100. we might have just heard it alot in athens cuz it sounded a little like rem (vs rem sounding a little like him about six or seven years prior).

Speaking of songs with great guitar playing on Whenever We Wanted, "Last Chance" is A+.

balls, I still think you're overstating Uh-Huh's success -- because the 'Pink Houses' campaign was so damn omnipresent? Check out his sales and chart positions. I mean, the first three Scarecrow singles charted progressively higher, and the album's timed with AF as best-seller.

"Human Wheels" and "What If I Came Knockin'" were both in pretty heavy rotation on my local AOR station at the time, but I don't remember the Human Wheels album being a big deal in and of itself.

yeah he was a constant AOR presence through the nineties; that's where I heard "Pop Singer" and "Get a Leg Up" and "Again Tonight."

Here's a forgotten gem: "Hand to Hold On To."

yeah i might be overstating it somewhat (it was still a big hit album, but apparently maybe not as big as scarecrow - i'm more convinced by 'rain on the scarecrow' being the fourth single and then 'rumbleseat' as a classic fifth single), i'd maybe argue that those chart positions don't reflect how big uh-huh's singles were on mtv but scarecrow's were just as huge so it's factored in already somewhat. scarecrow might've tied american fool but none of the mellencamp albums were quite as huge as american fool in the moment, it was the biggest selling album of the year. i wonder if the reason mellencamp and sprinsteen had more difficulty adjusting to the 90s than petty is they were more country than petty ie it wasn't so much grunge disrupting their market as garth.

Mellencamp after '88 became a VH-1 guy while MTV didn't lose its infatuation with Petty until the Total Request era.

you can hear the trouble on "Pop Singer" despite the pretty good groove: he's already whining about success.

Mellencamp got what the Boss and Petty didn't: a #1 single and far more top tens.

Here's a stat from my Whitburn book: Uh-Huh hit the top ten in its thirteenth week for one week (January '84), dropped out, returned several weeks later for another one-week stay, then tumbled down the chart. Meanwhile Scarecrow and TLJ debuted in the fall of their respective years and rode the top ten well into late spring.

Uh-Huh had some pretty stiff competition, though.

so did TLJ! Bad, Dirty Dancing, Tunnel of Love. I just read a Paul Grein column in Billboard in which he notes the surprising tenacity of TLJ against this competition months later.

yeah mellencamp's nineties is odd - most pop success of the three (four if you still want to pretend segar was part of the conversation) and yet somehow diminished in some way enough that he feels the need to hook w/ junior vasquez for some grab at relevance. i think he'd have switched places w/ petty's 90s in a heartbeat. mentioning 'pop singer' reminded me of an old john leland column where he basically teases out the secret pop history of the 80s by comparing it to taste of honey's 'boogie oogie oogie'; i couldn't find it but i found a fantastic end of decade wrapup singles column by frank owen that mentions it in passing (i guess leland had moved on by that point), then i wondered what became of frank owen and found this and had a little chuckle at the byline. 'small world' as huey lewis once sang.

Good point re: TLJ's chart competition, and yeah, rustic tenacity in the face of state-of-the-art dance pop.

Speaking of Leland, I seem to remember Spin digging on Mellencamp much more than you'd expect them to.

most pop success of the three (four if you still want to pretend segar was part of the conversation) and yet somehow diminished in some way enough that he feels the need to hook w/ junior vasquez for some grab at relevance

live by pop, die by pop

that was all guccione apparently, dude just loved him some johnny cougar. it wasn't even really a part of spin's general zag when rolling stone zigs mo which led to them putting hip-hop, freestyle, and mod rock acts rolling stone wouldn't dream of giving a cover to (moz, the cure, inxs, nick cave amazingly) on their cover in the 80s.

i respect mellencamp working w/ vasquez and admire the popist nature of the impulse (the closest petty would come to that in a million years is working w/ dave stewart) but in retrospect the relevancy move to make there was to work w/ sheryl crow, maybe hire mitchell froom.

gross

man that frank owen column is fantastic, and such an effective counterpoint to rolling stone's state of the 80s, the beginning of the piece for the best albums of the 80s issue going: This has been the first rock & roll decade without revolution, or true revolutionaries, to call its own. The Fifties witnessed nothing less than the birth of the music. The Sixties were rocked by Beatlemania, Motown, Phil Spector, psychedelia and Bob Dylan. The Seventies gave rise to David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, heavy metal, punk and New Wave.

In comparison, the Eighties have been the decade of, among other things, synth pop, Michael Jackson, the compact disc, Sixties reunion tours, the Beastie Boys and a lot more heavy metal. But if the past ten years haven't exactly been the stuff of revolution, they have been a critical time of re-assessment and reconstruction. Musicians and audiences alike have struggled to come to terms with rock's parameters and possibilities, its emotional resonance and often dormant social consciousness.

clueless motherfuckers

Petty's MTV longevity is because he made the better videos, right? Or maybe because "Free Fallin'" was a pretty widely loved peak and came out in 89, after Mellencamp and Springsteen had already peaked?

probably didn't hurt that he was able to get, like Johnny Depp in videos somehow.

but he got Me'shell Ndegeocello.

maybe? i just know that everybody my age played the fuck out of petty's greatest hits and wildflowers, he maintained some kind of relevance and cool that mellencamp and springsteen esp couldn't approach. it was the 00s before i routinely met normal ppl in their twenties that loved springsteen again.

But if the past ten years haven't exactly been the stuff of revolution,

Ugh, what the fuck. Reminds me of RS' 1988 year-end issue, and the capsule review of Nation of Millions. It was generally positive, if lukewarm, but decided to let Flav's "Yo, I wanna watch the game!" ruin the experience; the review ended with, "If the revolution is televised, Chuck and Flav might miss it because they're watching the game."

@balls that reflects my experience as well. Feel like tons of people, including my friends, were jamming Dookie, Vitalogy, Wildflowers, and the Weezer record throughout that year.

it may have just been that mellencamp became a vh1 artist, springsteen released his worst music, and petty timed his comeback well. i still think there was something specific to petty that mellencamp and springsteen lacked that gave him that post-grunge appeal. it may just be 'he recorded a fake neil young song'.

it was the 00s before i routinely met normal ppl in their twenties that loved springsteen again.

oh no question. When the GH debuted at #1 in '95 and "Secret Garden" actually became a modest hit he was wearing the earrings and the grunge clothes and he looked like Timothy B. Schmit counting ants on the sidewalk.

Yeah, it might also be that Petty just happened to be putting out better records than those two guys in the early- to mid-90s, and was definitely putting out better singles.

"You Don't Know How It Feels" one of the last big dad rock Top 40 hits, and it felt like "It's Good to be King" and "You Wreck Me," all huge on AOR, were bigger than chart positions.

tbh Bowie endured the same ignominy. No one was more uncool than Bowie from 1990-1995. It took a lot of work and touring and eventual cool capital from NIN collaborations and Nirvana/Pumpkins covers to restore him.

Thanks to those outstanding Ryko reissues, no one in, say, 1993, could deny what an awesome back catalog he had but no one gave a damn.

he looked like Timothy B. Schmit counting ants on the sidewalk - genuine lol at this. my best friend in high school liked springsteen also, when they came out he bought human touch and i bought lucky town, but everyone else i knew was kinda befuddled that i liked him, i can remember one gf somewhat teasing me about it by singing the chorus to '57 channels'. in the navy, where an 'old' person is around 26 or so springsteen fandom was even more nonexistent, i can remember this old chief and i would vaguely bond over it and him just being sadly befuddled by how diminished bruce's star had become, he was convinced that at some point the kids would wise up again. at the same time i can remember sitting in a van on a tarmac in iceland on thanksgiving night 1994, waiting for a c-130, listening to this female airedale who was driving's copy of wildflowers and it being totally normal cuz it was 1994 and she was...an american girl.

Bruce definitely had a rough 90s, but he's more than made up for it this century. As for enduring song from Lonesome Jubilee, Check It Out is the only one I still hear on the radio. That's my favorite song of his that isn't Lonely Ol Night.

i think by the 90s, post ryko all bowie focused on was being a kind of cool, rebuilding his brand, be it by revisiting and highlighting previous eras w/ something like outside or blatant trendchasing like earthling. it didn't work quite as well as w/ young but young had the market come to him and didn't have to repair as much damage, his 80s daftness somehow helped him in ways bowie couldn't tap into. you're right though that it took time for bowie become this default popular figure for cool young american whites, i'd guess a higher percentage of cool young american whites know 'life on mars' now than in 1994 and 'heroes' wasn't nearly the standard it has become (and i don't think that's mainly cuz of the wallflowers).

i'd guess a higher percentage of cool young american whites know 'life on mars' now than in 1994

It was nearly impossible to buy his records throughout the 80s. He was one of the last guys to reissue on CD, iirc

No one was more uncool than Bowie from 1990-1995

i don't think this is true? he wasn't perceived as a going concern but the berlin albums were 'cool'. certainly no worse than anyone else his age at the time.

plus no one except diehards bought Young's eighties records! Bowie had a bonafide hit (LD), a coattail platinum followup, and uh Never Let Me Down. Young's insane eighties output (nearly an album a year) was inversely proportional to his sales.

i can remember rolling stone putting him on the cover for this note's for you and thinking 'who the fuck is neil young?'

Of course several dozen English/European/Aussie bands honored his legacy but I can't think of any major critics writing career-long essays or even obit-type stuff in the eighties. All I know is the (good) essay in the early nineties RS guide to rock.

Looking at Petty and Mellencamp, something interesting is that, chartwise, Petty never had a run like Mellencamp from American Fool to The Lonesome Jubilee, either in albums or singles. Yet Petty's greatest hits is diamond and sold three times as many copies as Mellencamp's.

As far as Bowie, his songs were never played on classic rock radio in my hometown. Totally the least scientific sample, obviously. Was Bowie on classic rock playlists, then or now? Definitely everyone else mentioned recently in this thread lived on in the classic rock format.

the rockinger stuff like suffragette city or jean genie was on classic rock

yes, though i think i hear him more now than then. 'space oddity', 'changes', 'ziggy stardust', 'fame', and 'golden years' all were standards, i'd hear 'young americans', 'suffragette city', 'jean genie', and 'rebel rebel' some as well.

I didn't seriously get into Bowie until 1991, but I don't remember him being thought of as "uncool" at all. Fwiw, he never left "classic rock" playlists in Chicago.

I do remember hearing stories in 1993 or whenever of NIN fans leaving shows en masse before Bowie's set, leaving half-empty arenas, but don't know how true those were.

my AOR station played those ("Fame" excepted) and "Modern Love." I have a vague memory of "Day-In Day Out" getting play too but not recurrent

I do remember hearing stories in 1993 or whenever of NIN fans leaving shows en masse before Bowie's set, leaving half-empty arenas, but don't know how true those were.

Partly true. SPIN awarded him Worst Comeback of the Year:

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/outside-tour-the-nine-inch-nails-duets/

Good to know. I suppose I'm not surprised that rural Illinois stations were avoiding Bowie, though now that I think about it I recall hearing "Fame" a couple of times.

Heard Minutes to Memories on the radio for the first time in probably 20 years today. Holy fuck is that a great song.

Fantastic discussion upthread about Springsteen.

So...if he'd released HT/LT in '90 instead of '92, would they and its singles have been better received? Would he have had a Rhythm of the Saints moment i.e. "solid return and acclaim and sales" or gone The Razor's Edge and A Night on the Town? I tend to think that if the latter had happened, we'd remember TOL as a genuine New Jersey.

"rumbelseat" and "authority song" are about the only two post-1980 JCM songs that don't wear me out these days. and tbf the only pre-80 songs I can say for sure i know are "i need a lover" and "ain't even done with the night" but those are fucking dope k-classic all-timers imo

The third single is the worst.

A few days ago, WXRT in Chicago did a program on this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s47xRaz2AGk

Listening to it now, the program's probably not my thing, but if you're a huge fan of the album, hopefully it's a good listen - I never got the impression there was that much info out there on the making of Scarecrow.