John Mellencamp

Famous American musician John Mellencamp, also known as Johnny Cougar, was born in Indiana in 1951. Since the very childhood John has been interested in music, and at the age of fourteen he formed his first band called Crepe Soul. Moreover, he played in different local groups, which helped him to get the necessary experience. While studying in the college, Mellencamp got addicted to drugs and alcohol, but later he decided to give up all the bad habits and to devote himself completely to the creativity.

The musician’s debut studio work titled Chestnut Street Incident was released in 1976. That album included cover versions and was issued under the stage name Johnny Cougar. Mellencamp followed the advice of his producer Tony DeFries. However, by 1979 the singer changed his image, and his long play of 1979 was titled John Cougar, and name Johnny was substituted by a more adult one – John. The singer had plenty of new ideas that had been well realized in his albums. Thus, in 1980 Mellencamp issued his fifth studio attempt Nothin' Matters And What If It Did, including such famous compositions as Ain't Even Done With The Night and This Time. In 1982 John released the strong record American Fool that received fair reviews from the critics and pleased the listeners by such hits as Hurts So Good, Jack & Diane and many others. Also in 1982 Mellencamp won Grammy Award for the song Hurts So Good in the nomination Best Male Rock Performer.

In 1983 the performer insisted on usage of his real surname alongside with his stage name. Thus, the album Uh-Huh (1983) was released under the name John Cougar Mellencamp, and that record turned out to be very strong and successful. In 1989 the famous magazine Rolling Stone included Uh-Huh into the list of The 100 Greatest Albums of the 80's, which proves the highest level of that studio work. The next stage of metamorphosis took place in early nineties: the musician began releasing his albums as John Mellencamp, leaving his pseudonym behind. The record Whenever We Wanted (1991) was the first one to present the singer’s real name on its cover.

During the professional musical career Mellencamp was nominated for Grammy Award twelve times and he won one Grammy Award: definitely, such attention from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is quite well deserved. In spite of the big number of albums John still has a lot of fresh ideas and reflections, and the singer always shares them with his listeners. In 2008 the record titled Life, Death, Love, And Freedom was issued, and it got excellent reviews from the experts. There is no doubt that this traditionally strong work will be much enjoyed both by John Mellencamp’s old fans and by all the good music lovers, who appreciate real sincerity in the creativity. John released his new record No Better Than This in 2010. The musician stated that he was tired of being a rock-star, so he decided just to have fun and enjoy what he was doing. It is difficult to argue that such an attitude is a perfect condition to create truly sincere music and the album No Better Than This turned out to be a great proof of that.