Alice Smith & Mellencamp

I may have mentioned this before, but the Rhapsody music service is the best! Especially when you pay $15 per month and get a Sansa Rhapsody MP3 player. This allows you to download ANYTHING to the player for no extra charge. Now, whenever I read a favorable review, I just go to Rhapsody and download it to my player. Then, when I'm taking my hour-long walk each day with my dog, I fire up the player and put it on shuffle and hear all sorts of great new music that I would not have otherwise heard. Yesterday, I heard a couple of cuts from Alice Smith, which were really great. She only has one album out now, but check it out.

Also, I have been enjoying Mellencamps new release. On some of the tracks he really sounds like Dylan. In fact, as I was walking along the other day and one of his cuts came up on shuffle, I thought it was Dylan because I have a lot of Bob on the MP3 player. Then, as the song progressed I knew I have never heard it before, so I deduced that it was Mellencamp.

You should also check out the article on Mellencamp in the latest Rolling Stone (Downey Jr. on the cover). A representative paragraph:

With its rich, gothic-Americana sound, shaped by the impeccable tasteful roots-music producer T Bone Burnett, Life, Death, Love and Freedom is an "adult record," as Mellencamp sees it, marking the end of his hitmaking days and the beginning of something new. "I'm trying to live up to, you know, what a guy my age should be doing," he says. "I'm trying not to look silly. You know, it's like people say, 'Hey you're a rock star man.' And I don't see myself that way anymore. I'm just, like, a journeyman electrician or something."

And later:

Mellencamp is a lifelong Democrat. ... But his music has broad appeal in areas of the country that haven't voted Democratic in decades. "I have known for a long time that I was at odds politically with my surroundings," Mellencamp says. "I never wrote to my base. Nobody who is a Republican in Bloomington, Indiana is going to buy Neil Young's latest record, not even going to entertain the idea. But they might buy mine."

~ Tom