Lacking clout when he entered the music business, John Mellencamp acquiesced to his manager’s insistence that he change his name to the ostensibly more marketable Johnny Cougar. But after he began to score hits, the Indiana native started billing himself as John Cougar Mellencamp before finally reverting to John Mellencamp.

A new two-CD set called American Dream takes us back to the Johnny Cougar days, when the singer was a household name mainly in his own household. The 45-track collection presents a talented and ambitious young man whose vocal approach is already rather well-honed, but whose lyrics still need sharpening and whose musical direction and career prospects remain uncertain.

The collection, the full title of which is Johnny Cougar: American Dream (The Mainman Recordings 1976-1977), arrived on April 3, 2026, via the Lemon imprint of Cherry Red Records. It’s available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.

The set includes Chestnut Street Incident, Mellencamp’s 1976 debut LP, which sold poorly at the time; a contemporaneous EP called U.S. Male; and The Kid Inside, a 1977 album that wasn’t released until six years later, after the success of Mellencamp’s chart-topping American Fool LP. Also featured are 10 previously unissued album outtakes and the 10-track Skin It Back, a version of 1979’s John Cougar that originally appeared only in Australia.

Mellencamp compositions predominate in the anthology, and they suggest where he might be headed. In some of his songs, such as in “Dream Killing Town” and the violin-spiced “Chestnut Street,” you can hear the gritty Midwestern smalltown storytelling that would later define his lyrical approach. The verses aren’t as evocative as those on later releases, however, and many of these early originals, such as “American Son,” deliver undistinguished new wave-influenced pop-rock.

The collection includes a motley handful of covers, among them David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World,” John Sebastian’s “Do You Believe in Magic,” Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman,” the Doors’ “Twentieth Century Fox,” Iggy Pop’s “I Need Somebody Baby,” and Paul Revere’s “Kicks,” which Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil wrote. Thanks largely to superior material, some of these interpretive tracks outshine the Mellencamp originals.

This is not the first album by this artist that anyone should buy. If you’re already significantly invested in his large catalog, however, you might well be interested in this peek at his half-century-old embryonic work and the hints it offers about what was to come.

Mellencamp’s 2026 summer tour, “Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits,” begins in July. Tickets are available here.

Related: Our Album Rewind of Mellencamp’s Scarecrow