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Belmont Mall Studio

recording studio in Indiana

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 12, 2025
Entity authorityQ123524191 ↗
Source-derived summary

Belmont Mall Studio is a recording studio in Belmont, Indiana, United States. Located on West Lower Schooner Road, it was founded in 1984 by John Mellencamp. Albums which have been recorded there include John Mellencamp's Scarecrow (1985) and R.E.M.'s Lifes Rich Pageant (1986). R.E.M. chose the studio because they wanted to work with Mellencamp's producer, Don Gehman, who built the studio.

Mellencamp has recorded every album since 1985's Scarecrow at Belmont Mall, with the exception of 2010's No Better Than This, which was recorded at three historic musical locations.

Layout and design

The studio consists of two clapboard buildings around a pebbled courtyard. A sign on a parking space says it is "reserved for Elvis."

When designing the studio, Mellencamp wanted the control room to have the same look and feel as that of Studio B at Rumbo Recorders, a three-room building in Canoga Park, California.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Belmont Mall Studio” as recording studio in Indiana. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1984, 1985, 1986, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Belmont, Mall and Studio can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as recording studio in Indiana. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q123524191. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1985, 1986 and 2010.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Belmont Mall Studio”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Belmont Mall Studio primary sources, Belmont Mall Studio archive and Belmont research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Belmont Mall Studio”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Belmont Mall Studio” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.