Chevy’s No. 1 as a record label, says Mellencamp
January 15, 2007

John Mellencamp performs at the Chevy-sponsored Farm Aid Benefit Concert in Camden, N.J.

Singer John Mellencamp defends his controversial decision to license his recent album’s first single, “Our Country,” for a Chevy truck ad campaign in a profile on him in the February issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

Mellencamp said he was well aware that commercial radio doesn’t play the music of middle-aged rockers anymore, and he wanted his music heard. Further, he told the magazine, when Chevy handed him the creative freedom that he’s often fought for at his labels, he took it. “Pretty much, Chevrolet has been a better record company than Columbia Records ever was to me,” he is quoted as saying.

Mellencamp has been slammed for the move, partly because in the past he was critical of other singers, including Detroit’s own Bob Seger, for doing the same. Chevy used Seger’s “Like a Rock” for years in its truck advertising.

The New York Times accused Mellencamp of having “elastic” political values. “He and his spouse once wrote a jeremiad against the Bush administration that said, in part: ‘It is time to take back our country. Take it back from political agendas, corporate greed and overall manipulation,” the paper noted. “That was in 2003. Now he’s sitting on the fender of a Chevy truck, strumming a guitar and singing, ‘Well, I can stand beside ideals I think are right, and I can stand beside the idea to stand and fight.’ He can also stand beside a nice shiny truck, if the fee is right.”

—Michelle Krebs

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