Customer Reviews

Uh Huh

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pink Houses very well could be the best damn song about modern America that I've ever heard. I heard that the Authority Song was written after Cougar saw the movie Cool Hand Luke. I don't know if that's true or not but it correlates with the movie perfectly. Johnny Cougar blows the doors off any of this new rock and roll. I'll put in his CD's at all our sorry high school parties and we'll get potheads, hippies, drunks, cowboys, and dorks all singing along. Crumblin down has one of my favorite Mellencamp lines: "Some people just ain't now damn good, you can't love em', you can't trust em'."

This is the best album Mellencamp ever made and I ought to know - I own them all.

I've been building up my John Mellencamp collection for a while now, starting many years ago with this album. Uh-huh is still the most enjoyable one in the catalogue. All the tracks rock along with ease and power.

For a new John (Cougar) Mellencamp listener, I'd recommend this CD as one of the first listens. Musically it is as simple as they come, yet is a solid rocking album.

I think the most important ingredient in all of his work is FUN. People may slate the simplicity of some of his work, moan about the lyrical content, whatever, but one thing that shines through on all his releases is the fact that he goes into the studio with his band to have fun and make Cool Music!

Best tracks: Authority Song, Play Guitar (actually inspired me to take up Drums - which I did!), Serious Business, Crumblin' Down. ALL of them... It scores full marks on my listen-o-meter!

Go forward 15 years and check out the self titled John Mellencamp. Well worth it.

"Uh-Huh" was one of the few true rock albums of the early 80s. Aside from the Rolling Stones' "Undercover," this album showed that rock was more than Casio keyboards and synthesized drums. We get a dose of high-octane rock and roll that makes this album a true treasure.

At a time when Michael Jackson's "Beat It," The Culture Club, and acts of that ilk saturated the airwaves ad nauseum, Mellencamp offered a breath of fresh air with "Uh-Huh." It still holds up almost 20 years later.

A lot of Mellencamp's later material hasn't held up as well as "Uh-Huh," though he is still one of America's greatest rock assets.

In later years--"Trouble No More," "Cuttin Heads," etc.--Mellencamp has turend to a more folky-bluesy sound. In the eighties, though, it was all about rock n roll--and "Uh Huh" is a classis rock album (as is "Scarecrow," by the way).

Mellencamp acknowledges his fame in "Crumblin Down," and pokes fun at society in "Pink Houses," "Serious Business," and "Play Guitar." With the rebellious attitue displayed on "Authority Song," along with the world-wise anthem "Pink Houses," Mellencamp positioned himself as a singer of the people.

"Uh Huh" is a classic rock n roll album, there's no doubt about it. While Mellencamp's songwriting isn't always world-class (though close), his melodies and voice enrapture. Do you need to buy this album? Let's here it: "Uh huh."

After exploding into the big time with American Fool after several years of obscurity, no one would have blamed John Cougar for making an American Fool, part two. Instead, he moved away from that leather rocker image he created and became more himself. He added his real surname and started writing songs that were socially aware. "Pink Houses" is one of the most earnestness songs of the 80's. With it's look at life in America, Mr. Mellencamp shows that he has a finger on the pulse of the people. "Warmer Place To Sleep" is a strong rocker that addresses his "selling out" and coming back to a style of music that is more his own. "Crumblin' Down" is one of his all-time best songs, with it's pulsating bassline and wall of sound chorus, the song explodes out of your speakers. "Authority Song" has the feeling of a loose remake of Bobby Fuller's "I Fought Law". "Jackie O" has a jazzy vibe to it and "Play Guitar" is a ballsy rocker. "Serious Business" is another hard rocker that sums up his view on the music business, it's all sex and violence and rock and roll. Uh-huh was a quantum leap forward and showed that Mr. Mellencamp had true ability and wasn't just some manufactured hard rocker.

With the huge success of AMERICAN FOOL in 1982 the artist formerly called himself John Cougar added his real surname MELLENCAMP and surged ahead with his own rock'n roll style-straight-ahead rock with homecoming blues. CRUMBLING DOWN and AUTHORITY SONG are such straight rock songs. PINK HOUSES is a nice sample of homecoming nostalgia. During 1984 campaign Republican candidate Ronald Reagan used PINK HOUSES as Presidential campaign song ,which was against the will of the artist who made it of course. In AMERICAN FOOL the gap between hit tracks and the rest are so huge but this one is truly consistent -- the other album tracks are arranged and mixed so that the listener would not skip after track 4, WARMER PLACE TO SLEEP. PLAY GUITAR is another of upbeat rock song and closing song GOLDEN GATES refreshes our soul.

Essential for American rock fans and for any music fans who enjoyed recent compilation
WORDS AND MUSIC.

Uh-Huh was recorded in a 16 day jam session in Southern Indiana and it is far and away Mellencamp's strongest album. There are other songs of his that are my favorite but this album is incredibly powerful and tight. Well-conceived. If you are unsure, listen to the samples up above and you'll be convinced.

An amazing album I remembered from my childhood being played by my father from one of those ancient vinyl things. I decided to see if the album (cd) was as good as I remembered and payed my fee and waited for it to arrive. WOW! It took me back to the days of being young and free when music was new and ready to be discovered. I must add that anybody who has heard other albums by this artist may not be impressed as I have found but UH-HUH is the best of Cougars works and in my opinion full of truth and passion...and also fun.
If you have liked any of his songs give this a go and I promise you will not be let down....somethings get better with age..unlike my socks.

In his liner notes to "Uh-huh," John "Cougar" Mellencamp gives "special thanks to the Rolling Stones for never taking the livin' room off the records when we were kids." In many respects, Mellencamp followed 1982's hugely successful (but at times plodding) "American Fool" by reaching to songs of his youth. In 1983, he produced a comeback LP for 60s rocker Mitch Ryder, opened his tour with oldies like "Ya Ya" and "Heartbreak Hotel," then released this album drawing on mid-60s rock from Them and the Detroit Wheels to the Young Rascals and Stones of "Street Fighting Man." (All this two years before saluting them by name in "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.")

The acoustic/electric guitar swordfight in "Street Fighting Man" (which fueled Mellencamp's signature hit, "Jack and Diane") rolls through Don Gehman's co-production like that front yard interstate in "Pink Houses." Even in 1983 Mellencamp had one of rock's best backup bands, with drummer Kenny Aronoff crashing down on "Authority Song," "Crumblin' Down" and "Play Guitar" like the logical successor to Charlie Watts or the Rascals' Dino Danelli. The album brims with rousing, rockin' intros, from the fast-pitch wind-up guitar of "Authority Song" to even the cha-cha of "Jackie O." These songs defined "heartland rock" for the rest of the decade.

Like the "half devil/half man" tattoo mentioned in his inane "Lovin' Mother Fo Ya," Mellencamp had far to go as a lyricist in 1983. "Pink" and "Crumblin'" represented his best lyrics, offset by cliched Old Testament references in "Golden Gates" (sample lyric: "Ain't No Angel with a harp comin' singin'/Leastways that I Know of in this world") and "Warmer Place To Sleep" (mentioning Cain, Abel, Jezabel, and "forty days and forty nights.") Not to mention the pointless whining of the otherwise catchy "Serious Business," another slap at record business sharpies Mellencamp did better on "Pop Singer" and worse on "Cheap Shot."

"Uh-huh" was a step forward for Mellencamp, reintroducing his family surname (and his first attempt to phase out the "Cougar" nickname), writing more detailed story-songs and borrowing the influence and snarl of vintage rock. Its best songs also place on the hits set "The Best That I Could Do," making "Uh-huh" a supplementary purchase for longtime fans. It was a leap forward, but John "Cougar" Mellencamp would soon do still better.