Answer to Mellencamp Mono Quiz!

A few days ago, I posted a query from my friend, the PR Man Bob Merlis. Bob delivered the answer via email:

Thanks to everybody who responded to the inquiry we sent out earlier this week asking if you might know of the last Billboard Top 10 chart album that was released only in mono as John Mellencamp's "No Better Than This" is. 

I will admit some ambiguity in the question because it was just about impossible in the pre-SoundScan era for a new release to debut in the upper reaches of the chart.  It was much more typical for new albums to debut at a lower number and then work their way up the chart while today's usually debut in the upper reaches but go in the opposite direction shortly thereafter. The answer to the question is in hand thanks to chart savant Paul Grein whose Chart Watch blog for Yahoo spilled the beans:

John Mellencamp's No Better Than This, which debuted and peaked at #10 last week, is available only in mono. It's the first mono-only release to make the top 10 since James Brown's Pure Dynamite! Live At The Royal, which peaked at #10 in April 1964. Brown's album, which was recorded at the Royal Theater in Baltimore, was his second live album in less than a year, following his 1963 smash Live At The Apollo. (My thanks to Paul Haney of Record Research for coming up with the answer.)

Thanks to both Pauls for going the extra mile on this on.  John Mellencamp was certainly prescient about this. His "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A." (which hit #2 on Billboard's Top 100 singles chart in 1986) includes this lyric:

Voices from nowhere
And voices from the larger towns
Filled our head full of dreams
Turned the world upside down
There was Frankie Lyman-Bobby Fuller-Mitch Ryder
(They were Rockin')
Jackie Wilson-Shangra-las-Young Rascals
(They were Rockin')
Spotlight on Martha Reeves
Let's don't forget James Brown
Rockin' in the U.S.A.
Rockin' in the U.S.A.
Hey!"

Three lucky subscribers to the Off-Ramp newsletter will be winning this album, courtesy Bob Merlis, which is why you should sign up for the Off-Ramp newsletter, too -- besides the fact that it delivers inside poop on Off-Ramp, the show's rundown, and great recommendations to keep you busy in Southern California.