A Biography by John Mellencamp

A Biography, John Mellencamp's second album, came out under the name Johnny Cougar on Riva Records on March 6, 1978, and only in the UK and Australia. He cut it in London, but his debut, Chestnut Street Incident, had sold so poorly that nobody bothered to put the follow-up out in America.

Australia knew better: "I Need a Lover" went top 10 there, the kid's first real taste of a hit, and it was soon drafted onto the John Cougar album alongside "Taxi Dancer", which finally pushed the song into the US Top 40 late in 1979. Mellencamp himself has no love for the record, calling it bitter and wincing at lyrics that boil down to a young man snarling at everything around him. American fans had to wait for the 2005 remaster to buy it at home.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.