Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(78/100)
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
American Songwriter
Chatham Daily News
Chicago Tribune
Entertainment Weekly	A-
Los Angeles Times
Metro Canada
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Salt Lake Tribune	B+
Slant Magazine
Toronto Sun
USA Today

No Better Than This is an album by American singer-songwriter and musician John Mellencamp, produced by T Bone Burnett, that was released on August 17, 2010. The album was recorded at several historic locations throughout the United States. The title track was the album's first single and was sent to multiple radio formats on June 28, 2010.

Mellencamp said that the album is "as American folk as I've ever been". He also told Rolling Stone in July 2009 that he's not concerned whether or not there's a large audience for such a raw, simple record. "I am done being a rock star", Mellencamp said. "I have no interest in that, in having the biggest concerts. I have only one interest: to have fun while we're doing this and maybe have something that somebody might discover".

Rolling Stone placed No Better Than This No. 12 on its list of the best albums of 2010.

Mellencamp wrote over 30 songs for potential inclusion on the album but only 13 made the final cut. He debuted the first of those, "Save Some Time to Dream", on May 17, 2009 at a political fundraiser for President Barack Obama at the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. "It's about individual freedom and thought—and controlling our own lives", Mellencamp said of "Save Some Time to Dream", which he performed solo on acoustic guitar throughout much of his 2009 summer tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.

During breaks on the Nelson/Dylan tour, Mellencamp recorded No Better Than This at historic locations, such as the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia as well as at the historic Sun Studios in Memphis and the Sheraton Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where blues pioneer Robert Johnson recorded blues staples like "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Cross Road Blues". Mellencamp recorded the album using a 1955 Ampex portable recording machine and only one microphone, requiring all the musicians to gather together around the mic. The album was recorded in mono, the same manner as the classic folk and blues recordings of the 1930s and '40s.

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Wikipedia