Relaxed Americana / folk album of Mellencamp

Something incomprehensible why John Mellencamp is so unknown in this country, he has created in the 80s to mid 90s song classics rows (be heard on Greatest Hits: Words & Music) and then still made very respectable and plates. Musically he is a traditionalist and has rarely the zeitgeist bent (Mr. Happy Go Lucky).
For several years he has freed himself from the idea to the mainstream and rock and makes more plates which can be described as Americana and folk. With T-Bone Burnett, he has found for these enterprises the right producer.
Plainspoken is again wonderfully traditionally largely orchestrated acoustically. Every now and then you hear a discreet electric guitar. The drums are mostly played calmly with brooms. The production is very cautious and sounds very warm. Here Mellencamp singing with his smoky voice grave the meantime a similar age wisdom and authority conveys as from colleagues Leonard Cohen.
Any songs pick out the highlights is difficult because the songs are quite similar on the pace and created the instrumentation. Something out of the ordinary freedom of speech, which will be carried forward only with guitar and violin and the Schunkler The Courtesy Of Kings. One or two faster songs like the last song Lawless Times would not have hurt to loosen. So it all sounds very similar. Compared to its two previous Roots / Folk albums the 10 songs on plainspoken but are easier to understand and less brittle.
The best song lines are from the song The Isolation Of Mister:
"Never respected the job I was doing, never cared about money, but I felt underpaid"

Conclusion:
A mostly very relaxed and timeless Americana / Roots / Folk Album. Song failures there are none. At most one can complain that the lack of variety. Good 4 star rating but there are.