You could point out that The Idiot and Lust for Life were cut with the Bowie of Low and "Heroes" while Blah-Blah-Blah was cut with the Bowie of Let's Dance and "Dancing in the Streets." Or you could surmise that copping to conscience did even less for Ig than finding true love did for Chrissie Hynde. Too bad they'll never hear "Dum Dum Boys." A. Obviously, no one who owns the originals needs this record, but dollarwise students of that long-ago time should be grateful. Makes you think Bowie knew what he was doing-"Jimmy, please, what do you say we put the, ah, less accessible things on the B?" Though I would have subbed with "Success," that's a quibble on such a consistent album, and though I find that the less accessible things retain their narrow interest, I admit that this is the first time in the '80s it's occurred to me to listen to them. Give or take some song-shuffling and a minor substitution, side one of this strange piece of product comprises side one of Ig's 1977 Bowie-produced The Idiot and side two comprises side one of Ig's 1977 Bowie-produced Lust for Life. Blame the slogans, social theory, in-jokes, bad poetry, and vocal dramaturgy he had to work with. Don't blame music-meister Rob duPrey, whose settings maintain stylistic continuity yet generate a certain theoretical interest of their own. Granted artistic freedom by idealist entrepreneur Chris Stein after three albums of hard-rock self-formulization for bad old Clive Davis, the Ig comes up with the most experimental record of his career. Iggy: "Ivan, what rhymes with `touches my feet'?" Ivan: "How about something with `creep'-about how you're not a creep, you know?" "But Ivan, I am a creep." "No one will ever know." C+ B+Īlthough the music's "tight," and sometimes kinda hip rhythmically too, I guarantee it took him longer to get the Uptown Horns on the telephone than to write these lyrics. Play this a few times and in two years you'll still recall five songs when you put it on again: "Dog Food," "I Snub You," "Loco Mosquito," "I'm a Conservative," "Play it Safe." And all the others will sound pretty good. But the formula serves him well he can apparently generate satirical energy over a clean rock bottom at will. This is sheer product-hard uptempo sessions with the pickup band that featured Glen Matlock and Ivan Kral.
But it does get at least partway over on the strength of a first side that has the casual, hard-assed, funny feel of a good blues session-except that it rocks harder, which ain't bad. This album provides what it advertises only to those who consider Iggy a font of natural wisdom-there are such people, you know. Much of it works anyway, but that doesn't mean I can't dock it a notch for pissing me off. "Funtime" with anti-Semitic flourishes, and lots of irrelevant bombast and concert-hall echo.
Iggy pop today plus#
In the great tradition of Uncle Lou, here's a live quickie for you-four songs from the two recent RCA albums, plus a classic or two from each hard-to-find Elektra, plus the collectors' single "I Got a Right." You get to hear "Lust for Life" without the laff-a-line chorus. Like most rock and rollers, I prefer this to The Idiot because it's faster and more assertive-which means, among other things, that the nihilistic satire is counteracted by the forward motion of the music itself. If The Idiot exploits the (tranceprone) affinity for the slow rocker that Bowie evinced on Station to Station, this reestablishes the (apollonian) affinity for the dionysiac artist Bowie made so much of five years ago on Mott's All the Young Dudes. Not true, perhaps, but retrospect favors artifacts.
In retrospect, it will appear that this was Iggy's only alternative to autodestruct. By now, Iggy barbs his lyrics with an oldtimer's irony, which suits the reflective tone Bowie has imposed on the music just fine. Dissipated or not, the new record works as a record. The Stooges recorded prophetic music, but only some of it was great: because Iggy's skill at working out his musical concept didn't match his energy and inspiration, the attempted dirges fell too flat and some of the rockers never blasted off as intended. The line on Iggy is that this comeback album with Bowie and friends proves his creative power has dissipated.
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