Re: NBC Rank Top Mellencamp Albums

I've ranked these according to must have status. Some of the top ones
may not have his "greatest" songs, but as a whole, they are the most
solid albums. Some of the ones toward the middle or bottom have one
or two great songs, with too much filler to recommend purchasing
first. Unfortunately, this has been the case with Mellencamp since
Dance Naked in '94. I don't have "Life, Death, Love and Freedom" on
the list because I don't own it. What I've heard hasn't exactly made
me run out to buy it right away either. Going by the list, I am
clearly not a fan of the acoustic releases. I discovered Mellencamp
when he was Cougar and I prefer the bar band to the jug band. After 6
washboard and fiddle releases in a row now, I feel that they're simply
overdone.

I also separated the compilations from the stand-alone releases. And
- in the absence of an official live album, I threw in some bootlegs
you can track down.

Hope this helps.

1991 Whenever We Wanted
1983 Uh-Huh
1985 Scarecrow
1982 American Fool
1996 Mr. Happy Go Lucky
1987 The Lonesome Jubilee
1994 Dance Naked
1979 John Cougar
1989 Big Daddy
1993 Human Wheels
1980 Nothin' Matters and What If It Did
2001 Cuttin' Heads
2007 Freedom's Road
2003 Trouble No More
1998 John Mellencamp
1976 Chestnut Street Incident
1977 The Kid Inside
1978 A Biography

COMPILATIONS:
2004 Words & Music: John Mellencamp's Greatest Hits
1997 The Best That I Could Do 1978–1988
1999 Rough Harvest
2007 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: The Best of
John Mellencamp

BOOTLEGS:
1984 Indiana University
1992 4th of July, Deer Creek
1984 Acoustic at the Agora in Cleveland
1988 Live in Dallas
1983 Bloomington, IN
.

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