Is there anybody cooler than Iggy Pop?
The manner in which he paid tribute to Stooges drummer Scott Asheton in Rolling Stone this week was a beautiful thing to read. It was a reminder of just how well-spoken Iggy Pop and how different he is from "The Idiot". Despite the many ill-fated attempts to break Iggy to a mass audience, what becomes glaringly obvious is that the only thing Iggy can be is, well, Iggy. Take it or leave it. Desite his unapologetic musical style, I don't know that there is a better interviewee in all of rock & roll than Iggy.
Take this mini-documentary of Iggy showing us around his neighborhood in NYC back in 1993, while he was promoting his American Caesar album. Iggy shows us around the Lower East Side neighborood he calls home with a striking candor and youthful enthusiasm that belies his age. Hard to believe it was 21 years ago.
As for this this ten-minute "dummies guide" to Iggy & The Stooges, it superbly defines the kamikaze intesity with which Iggy and the band threw themselves into every song, defining a genre that would not have a name for another seven years after the release of The Stooges in 1969.
Today's Throwback Thursday Playlist is comprised of our Top 5 Fave Iggy Pop songs, in no particular order.
"Lust For Life" (1977, Lust For Life)
So what if it took a cruise ship ad campaign to break this tune to a worldwide audience, it's a bad-ass hip-shaker of a rock tune that holds up to multiple spins without losing its punch. Surely, such an immediate marvel of a rock tune must have been a big hit when it came out, right? You would think so, but the song did not chart and the album itself rose no higher than #120 on the U.S. charts. We at The Shit consider it to be one of the best songs Bowie ever wrote.
"Shades" (1986, Blah Blah Blah)
Iggy reunited with David Bowie for the synth-heavy Blah Blah Blah record, an obvious attempt to streamline Iggy for '80s mass consumption. While Pop certainly seems on his best behavior for much of the album, this simple, yet endearing ode to the sunglasses his new wife bought for him is impossible to deny.
"Ordinary Bummer" (1982, Zombie Birdhouse)
At times recalling Lou Reed circa Transformer, this bare bones mid-tempo mood piece was from the sorely under-promoted Zombie Birdhouse, which was initially issued on Blondie guitarist Chris Stein's Animel Records label. Blondie would later cover the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhRscZVlnjY) under the name Adolph's Dog for the Iggy tribute album We Will Fall in 1997, just prior to announcing their official return to active duty.
"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (1969, The Stooges)
Once you hear that incendiary opening riff, you realize you aren't in Kansas anymore and that this might just be the best Iggy and the Stooges track ever. Amazingly, it still sounds completely ferocious 46 years later. Everyone from Joan Jett to Uncle Tupelo to SLayer has covered it over the years, as every rock bands wants to feel the "raw power" of this, the first great punk anthem ever written.
"Dum Dum Boys" (1977, The Idiot)
Carlos Alomar's guitar work on this track raises an already amazing track to iconic status. So many tracks from The Idiot were later covered by the likes of The Cars ("Funtime"), Human League ("Nightclubbing"), and Tiny Girls (Martin Gore), but thus far folks have been smart enough to leave perfection alone.