I don’t get this comparison at all.
Okay.
Fois, please go back and read this. DWDiddy is a trained professional (!) and knows what he’s talking about. Look at Little Pink Houses: JM’s delivery of the chorus - Ain’t that 'merica, homeuhdafree - has a good melody, but is slurred and a bit too cool for its own good. Compare that to his own Jack and Diane, a fucking brilliant song - I’d say his best as an Indiana Springsteen - where he drills the chorus into your brain.
Petty’s songs had equally good bones, but more commercial choruses. His Refugee has the same urgent earworm quality that Jack and Diane does. I would assert that Petty had more of those.
Did Mellancamp ever express personal loneliness or bitterness or was he always the voice of the small town? I don’t get that introspective feeling from him - at all - and I feel that is a key difference-maker between him and Petty. And also, where is Mellancamp’s song of transcendence? Of personal discovery? Where’s his Free Fallin?
Not a hit, but from Scarecrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQgWG-YiP3w
No question it’s thoughtful.
It’s a “Man’s lesson about what’s Important” type of lyric - that’s the Springsteen feel.
But he’s not portraying himself as weak and an outsider, he’s portraying himself as young and impetuous.
Petty wishes he wrote Lennon’s Help or Hide Your Love Away. Mellencamp* wishes he wrote This Land is Your Land. Both are worthy goals; I think Petty got a bit closer to Lennon.
*noticing my auto-correct is misspelling this without my realizing. Bastards!
You obviously haven’t listened to anything Mellencamp has done for a long, long time. He ceased being commercial around the turn of the century and all his work since is either political or deeply introspective. Most of his concerns are social or entirely age appropriate musings about mortality.
You could check out any of his albums since 2000 or so but if you’re looking for loneliness and bitterness check out Life, Death, Love and Freedom.
And here are his cheery latter day lyrics.
Cool, thanks for this. I am definitely comparing the songs from their most popular stuff.
I will admit that I haven’t looked too far beyond the hits and radio play of both Petty and Mellencamp, but I’ve always thought many of JCM’s songs have the above qualities and only a few of TP’s do. A fair slug of TP’s songs (again, the hits) work off the love/relationship theme, mainstay material. JCM leans on it now and again, but less often. He, more often than Petty, draws on other mundane and even cliché things in life and reinjects them with pathos, or transcendence if you will. In that respect I’ve always grouped JCM with Bob Seger’s best stuff.
Petty does have more earwormy choruses, as mentioned upthread. That’s another staple of pop music. But for me anyway JCM has more memorable musical riffs, sometimes as openers, that fit the lyrics nicely. The best one of these is probably Check It Out, but there are others.
Plus, overall, TP’s lyrics rely more on declarative statements, whereas JCM does more picture painting and storytelling.
I like them both, but if someone were to tell me I could only listen to one or the other from here on out, I’d pick Mellencamp hands down.
Nice.
Want to give reason and cite for “disastrousness”?
They have similar musical strategies. But Mellencamp, cmon. For a long time in the 80s or 90s, whenever you heard some hambone song on the radio about america or having the gloria chords and thinking it was springsteen, it was John Mellencamp, without deviation and without fail. That’s not a testimony to his originality. He is even more derivative than Petty.
Petty had a punk era slew of rock and roll songs you had to hear. How does JCM come close to that?
It was Tony Defries, Bowies manager. And Mick Ronson was the guitar and arranger on the LP with Jack and Diane. I can’t imagine it but it’s true.
JCM was a Springsteen doppelganger when he was having his hits. That was why he was in the world. The resemblance was intentional and complete. He made records for the kids waiting for the next boss album. Springsteen is the elephant in this room. He’s not irrelevant.
When you hear those mid 80s Americana songs of his do you think this was his actual musical inner self coming out? He was basically coming in on the chorus of Bruce’s career.
Ha, I have them all fooled! 
But seriously, thanks for the support, and my curt answer aside, I stand by my assertion that Petty’s melodies are just plain stronger. Because they are very similar in other ways, I agree with the OP there. But Petty’s melodies are so rooted, so powerful, that for me it’s no contest, and I think it’s a testament to how he remained relevant for so long.
I’m a Tom Petty fan and someone who enjoys Mellencamp as a casual listener. I think Mellencamp is more consistent in terms of great melodies, but Petty’s lyrics and delivery turn good songs into great songs. (I tend to think Petty’s best melodies were thanks to Mike Campbell anyway.)
Mellencamp’s lyrics always feel weak and superficial, while Petty had a genuine understanding of the human condition. Couple that understanding with a real conviction in the performances, and there’s no contest.
Mellencamp is who I listen to when doing other things. Petty is someone I dedicate 40 minutes to.
Don’t care for either of 'em, really, although Petty’s Traveling Wilbury work redeems him to some extent.
“Born in the USA” is one of the best selling albums of all time.
As to the OP, John Mellencamp definitely has his moments and I think the quality of his lyrics are being a little underappreciated here. “Authority Song” is outstanding. In general, though, I’d agree Petty’s body of work is much deeper and more impressive, and frankly it has aged better.
It’s easier to like Tom Petty, I think, in part because Tom seemed to want you to be in on the joke. A lot of his songs, like “A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own” or “Yer So Bad” are silly and fun. It’s hard to imagine John Mellencamp straight-facing the “Hello CD Listeners” joke while his band makes, for reasons known only to God, farm animal noises in the background. He was uglier than a bad of bugs and smirking in his videos as if to say “I cannot believe my good fortune. They pay me to do this. Can you believe it? Let’s have some fun. Look, Ringo Starr came to play drums, isn’t that cool?” It’s hard not to like that.
Mellencamp had very nice words about Tom Petty:
“Tom Petty was the Edward Hopper of American songwriters. He was a certain kind of bird that had no legs, so he could never land on this earth; he lived his whole life in the sky. And now he will spread his wings and sleep on the wind. His name is written in the stars.”
Growing up in Ohio in the 80s and 90s, Mellencamp and Springsteen were more much popular and relevant to the culture there and then. My high school marching band played songs by both of them. Everyone knew their songs and sang along to them when the came on the radio.
Petty just wasn’t important. Of course, Petty was one of my favorites, which only highlighted my social geekiness at the time.
If there were a like button on here, I’d just like the OP rather than comment, since I don’t have anything original to add. But since that’s not an option, I’m instead going to say that I agree, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp do indeed have similar sounds.
At his peak, Mellencamp had some great songs. But he had a shorter peak than Petty.
I’d say Petty had a lot more good songs. But “Check It Out” is as good as anything Petty ever did, if not better.
Well, the kid from Jersey DID have an entire album titled Nebraska…
Hard to believe anyone would even put Tom Petty and Springsteen in the same category. Of course, I thought Born to Run was the best album ever when folk were still saying they “didn’t like his voice.” Of course, I’m willing to acknowledge that a good part of any such debate would depend on personal taste. I acknowledge Petty’s longevity and commercial success, but never imagined anything he was part of was the equal of Born to Run or Darkness (or Greetings or Wild/Innocent).
John Cougar had a couple of catchy tunes - that’s it. My impression was that he pretty much made his pile and decided to live a quieter life in Indiana. But I never followed him closely.