There are those who have been waiting for a Mellencamp-Springsteen collaboration since a needle first rode the grooves of “Dream Killing Town,” a track that is more at home on an early Springsteen tour than it is on the delightfully novice Mellencamp album of 1976 that it calls home. Forty-six years on, that collaboration is finally here with Mellencamp’s Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. Though Springsteen makes an appearance on three excellent tracks, the album is more Mellencamp’s own than anything he’s released to date. From his ground-gravel vocals and lyrics, to instrumentation that seems to be calling to you from the foundations of Americana, which Mellencamp has been exploring throughout his career, the album is steeped in ideas, images, and sounds that only its author’s particular experience could create. —Alex Oliveira