John Mellencamp
Sad Clowns & Hillbillies
Release Date: Apr 28, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Island
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Album Review: Sad Clowns & Hillbillies by John Mellencamp
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8.4/10
Heartland rocker. Hoosier hit-maker. Political populist. One-time "next Springsteen." Farm Aid founder. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. After 40 years and 23 albums, John Mellencamp's place in the pantheon of late 20th century pop music is well established. But for the past decade or so, The Artist ….
Based on rating 7/10
Sad Clowns & Hillbillies marks the first time in a decade that a John Mellencamp studio record finds him in the producer's chair. It's the first time ever that he's shared billing on an album cover. Carlene Carter is a singer/songwriter and music biz veteran; the daughter of country music royalty -- Carl Smith and June Carter Cash -- making her the stepdaughter of Johnny.
Based on rating 3/5
John Mellencamp's 23rd studio album takes a while to hit pay dirt. Openers Mobile Blues and Battle Of Angels, then Grandview (a by-the-numbers paean to trailers featuring country-pop star Martina McBride) sound curiously lowkey... but when the album delivers on its artwork credit and starts "featuring Carlene Carter", the magic really happens. The collaboration with Carter (daughter of June Carter Cash, stepdaughter to Johnny) arose from soundtrack work done by Mellencamp on the stage production of Stephen King's Ghost Brothers Of Darkland County and the 2015 Meg Ryan directed movie Ithaca.
Based on rating 3/5
O ccupying the space where Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Billy Joel converge, over the decades John Mellencamp has honed a sort of everyman Americana, representing a more heartening type of populism. Sad Clowns & Hillbillies, his 23rd album and a collaboration of sorts with Carlene Carter (daughter of June), continues this tradition in part - most obviously with Easy Target, a rather elliptical meditation on the lie of post-racism that owes a significant debt to Desire-era Dylan. Carter and Mellencamp have worked together before, including on his score for Meg Ryan's second world war drama Ithaca, and offcuts from that project (including the suitably saccharine Sugar Hill Mountain) surface here, as do some from Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, the musical he made with Stephen King.
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