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I read where Iggy chided new bass player Mike Watt for making a bass line too interesting, because he wanted the new record to sound big and dumb. Worst of all (as you've probably read ad nauseum), the lyrics are surprisingly sophomoric, maybe even for The Stooges. The sound remains relatively raw, if not quite as powerful as you might remember. Unlike the Dolls, The Stooges latest release, The Weirdness, certainly doesn't suffer from the sheen of overproduction. I was one of those (maybe one of the few) who was more excited than nervous about the prospect of a reunited Stooges putting out new material, in spite of the overly slick and underwhelming new release from the New Your Dolls last year. In recent years, however, Iggy's output has been somewhat hit or miss but still occasionally worth checking out. We've already lost many of them, but a few are notably carrying on.įor me, the most vivid example of this is the 60-year old Iggy Pop, the Godfather of Punk, who, let's face it, has written some of the most blistering songs in the rock pantheon. For my generation though, we are only now getting to the point at which the punk rockers are getting old. Depending on whom you ask, the Rolling Stones are both examples of and exceptions to this rule. He's a shirtless, good-guy knight after all.Unlike jazz and the blues, rock tends to be relatively unfriendly to its aging statesmen. He founded a style as much as Little Richard or Buddy Holly and he has a core cluster of wild man anthems that will make people gasp and laugh for a long while. So is Iggy less captivating now that he's no longer beneath the underdog? Not necessarily. The slowish number that works best on Roadkill Rising is Iggy's hearty but tender reading of the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy." For all his screams of personal nihilism and fury, it may be the most autobiographical statement on the set. And that's what Iggy wants.Īs the fourth disc indicates, lately he's tried to kick the perversity up a notch by showcasing his sensitive side.
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He starts the tune over and over again until you want to holler that trying to sing a boozy dirge to a crowded mass of zonked maniacs may not be a smart plan. During a heated show in 1980, he can't get the audience to calm down enough for him to cover "One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)." He curses and rages at the fans and they do the same at him. In his weird way, however, Iggy can turn that to an advantage. He cannot develop momentum or build to a big finish - when his tempo falls, the show usually slides to a halt. The Roadkill Rising set confirms that Iggy's biggest flaw is that he has trouble with slow tunes. He was "the world's forgotten boy" and, in one deathless turn on the track "I Wanna Be Your Dog," a submissive canine. From Day One in the late '60s, he was bad and mad all the way down. And hippies were a milder, fuzzier version of the same misunderstood souls. Of course, these were stand-ins for the performers themselves, good guys pushing what the squares considered pernicious garbage. In the early days of rock-and-roll songs, a constant character was the social outcast - a misfit who was, deep down, a knight in black leather. Perhaps a better question is, how can you spoil someone so devoted to imperfection? Flaws and foul-ups have been part of Iggy's plan from the start - part of what makes him an arch-punk. So you have to ask - has success spoiled Iggy Pop? Yet 10 years into the 21st century, he has enough of an established audience to support a boxed set of rough-edged performances that span more than four decades. Back in the late '70s, Iggy, like Keith Richards, was supposed to already have a coffin with his name on it. This is more of a reflection on surprising endurance. If you even think you would enjoy four CDs of unreleased Iggy Pop concert bootlegs - with dropouts, feedback and lots of flubbed notes - you don't need me to tell you about it. I'm not presenting much of a consumer guide here.