John Mellencamp

I hate John "Cougar' Mellencamp as much as the next guy... OR SO I THOUGHT!

Wow, was I wrong about about him. This blog will just go to show how much stereotyping and assuming negatively effects us when we're least expecting it.

What do you think of when you hear John Mellencamp? Good ol boy, church attendin, wanna be cowboys? The same things that come to mind when you think of Chevy trucks and hometown football heros ("Jack and Diane" reference)?

Well, thats what I thought of at least! BUT I WAS WRONG!

What I learned today on yet another beautiful block of NPR listening breaks every stereotype I had for both Mellencamp and his followers. I want to keep emphasizing how wrong I was about this so that maybe I won't be so quick to judge in the future, even on things that "just HAVE to be true".

Mellencamp is an anti-prejudice, anti-organized religion, very liberal, humble, and open minded gentlemen. He is the first to admit that he altered and sugar coated his music in the 80's, like his most popular song "Jack and Diane" from being about being accepting of interracial relationships(In the first version of the song, Jack was black), to just being about "American nostalgia".

He began his music career in cover bands playing everything from Dylan to Iggy Pop (He even lived in London from 77-78 and was at least aware of the punk scene at the time) Through the interview he made it absolutely clear that his main pulse has always been for Folk music. He went on to show how all of his songs are truly Folk when played correctly, but in order to make a career as a musician he had to cater to the mainstream's musical tastes.

I'm going to get kind of off topic here by leaving John Mellencamp behind (wikipedia him if you want to learn more), and go back to my overall thought with this entry... No matter what you THINK you know about someone, you could ALWAYS be wrong, and at the end of the day when you pass unsupported judgements on them you have a 50% of being right, but also a 50% chance of being a total pawn to image and another sheep in the media's herd.