I've been reading some reviews of his new album while listening to it and frankly, while most are positive, they are still, IMHO, rating it much lower than it deserves.

For one thing, I would love to know the ages of each reviewer - it seems to me, too many of them are metaphorical children in terms of Mellencamp's long career.

Next, I grow weary of music fans that seem to want the same goddamned album over and over again and want that same pop song redone (I guess we do live in a world of constant "re-boots," eh?). This album clearly illustrates Mellencamp's continued musical growth and progression, both sound-wise and lyric-wise.

In the movie North-Dallas Forty, one theme I feel most people overlook too much is when the great character actor G.D. Spradlin (the head coach and corrupt Senator in The Godfather) professes to the Nick Nolte character how there comes a day when a person is to set aside childish things and become mature - with this album, this is exactly what Mellencamp has done - this album is clearly for those with the ability to reflect upon life, actions, where we are now and how little time we really have left - it should also be an album that portends the future to the kiddies that are myopic to aging.

I have often told people, to me, one period of Mellencamp's wonderful musical progression is illustrated in his music in the trio of his albums Scarecrow, The Lonesome Jubilee, and Big Daddy. 

And if one goes back over his career output, I think it is clear that he went through musical stages and growth and how obvious those stages are - rambunctious rocker to the emerging storyteller to layered and expansive musician to musical reduction to where he is now. 

With this new album (possibly one of the last "concept albums"?), if one really wanted to be told of a short description of what it is like, I would suggest it is like if you took his last few albums of his pared-down (sonically) but lyrically beautiful songs and threw in a bit more of the Scarecrow-Jubilee-Big Daddy era, threw them into a blender and then added truly meaningful mature lyrics, you would come out with Strictly A One-Eyed Jack.

On top of this, if you had ever told me one of the best songs off of this album would be a mellow, piano-jazz-like whiskey bar song (Gone So Soon), I probably would have suggested you'd be crazy - but there it is. 

Don't get me wrong, this is not an album of despair or depression, but instead a fabulous reflective look at LIFE. 

PS...and for all of those reviewers out there that keep remarking on his voice, Jesus, the man is 70! (Though on a couple of tunes you can hear the voice of Mellencamp of the past and how he can still get there, it seems to me that the current Mellencamp is instead singing from an era of comfort more so than repetition with a twinge of "been there, done that").