Iggy Pop - The Idiot (Classic album 1977)

In 1976, the Stooges had been gone for two years, and Iggy Pop had developed a notorious reputation as one of rock & roll's most spectacular waste cases. After a self-imposed stay in a mental hospital, a significantly more functional Iggy was desperate to prove he could hold down a career in music, and he was given another chance by his longtime ally, David Bowie. Bowie co-wrote a batch of new songs with Iggy, put together a band, and produced The Idiot, which took Iggy in a new direction decidedly different from the guitar-fueled proto-punk of the Stooges. Musically, The Idiot is of a piece with the impressionistic music of Bowie's "Berlin Period" (such as Heroes and Low), with it's fragmented guitar figures, ominous basslines, and discordant, high-relief keyboard parts. Iggy's new music was cerebral and inward-looking, where his early work had been a glorious call to the id, and Iggy was in more subdued form than with the Stooges, with his voice sinking into a world-weary baritone that was a decided contrast to the harsh, defiant cry heard on "Search and Destroy." Iggy was exploring new territory as a lyricist, and his songs on The Idiot are self-referential and poetic in a way that his work had rarely been in the past; for the most part the results are impressive, especially "Dum Dum Boys," a paean to the glory days of his former band, and "Nightclubbing," a call to the joys of decadence. The Idiot introduced the world to a very different Iggy Pop, and if the results surprised anyone expecting a replay of the assault of Raw Power, it also made it clear that Iggy was older, wiser, and still had plenty to say; it's a flawed but powerful and emotionally absorbing work.

AMG Review by Mark Deming

Iggy Pop - New Values (1979 Superb Classic Album)

From the time the Stooges first broke onto the music scene in 1967, Iggy Pop was rock's most remarkable one-man freak show, but by the mid-'70s, after the Stooges' messy collapse, Iggy found himself in need of a stable career. The rise of punk rock finally created a context in which Iggy's crash-and-burn theatrics seemed like inspired performance rather than some sort of cry for help, and in 1979, with everyone who was anyone name-checking Iggy as punk's Founding Father, he scored a deal with Arista Records, and New Values became his first recording since the new rock gained a foothold. These days, New Values sounds like Iggy Pop's new wave album; while former Stooges associates James Williamson and Scott Thurston worked on the album, the arrangements were dotted with synthesizer patches and electronic percussion accents that have not stood the test of time well at all, and the mix speaks of a more polite approach than the raw, raging rock of Iggy's best work. But the growth as a songwriter that David Bowie encouraged in Iggy on The Idiot and Lust for Life is very much in evidence here; "Tell Me a Story," "Billy Is a Runaway," and "How Do Ya Fix a Broken Part" are tough, unblinking meditations on Iggy's war with the persona he created for himself, and "I'm Bored" and "Five Foot One" proved rock's first great minimalist still had some worthy metaphors up his sleeve. If New Values wasn't a great Iggy Pop album, it was a very good one, and proved that he had a future without David Bowie's guidance, something that didn't seem so certain at the time.

AMG Review by Mark Deming

Iggy Pop - Lust For Life (1977 Superb Classic Album)

On The Idiot, Iggy Pop looked deep inside himself, trying to figure out how his life and his art had gone wrong in the past. But on Lust for Life, released less than a year later, Iggy decided it was time to kick up his heels, as he traded in the mid-tempo introspection of his first album and began rocking hard again. Musically, Lust for Life is a more aggressive set than The Idiot, largely thanks to drummer Hunt Sales and his bassist brother Tony Sales. The Sales' proved they were a world class rhythm section, laying out power and spirit on the rollicking title cut, the tough groove of "Tonight," and the lean neo-punk assault of "Neighborhood Threat," and with guitarists Ricky Gardner and Carlos Alomar at their side, they made for a tough, wiry rock & roll band -- a far cry from the primal stomp of the Stooges, but capable of kicking Iggy back into high gear. (David Bowie played piano and produced, as he had on The Idiot, but his presence is less clearly felt on this album.) As a lyricist and vocalist, Iggy Pop rose to the challenge of the material; if he was still obsessed with drugs ("Tonight"), decadence ("The Passenger"), and bad decisions ("Some Weird Sin"), the title cut suggested he could avoid a few of the temptations that crossed his path, and songs like "Success" displayed a cocky joy that confirmed Iggy was back at full strength. On Lust for Life, Iggy Pop managed to channel the aggressive power of his work with the Stooges with the intelligence and perception of The Idiot, and the result was the best of both worlds; smart, funny, edgy, and hard-rocking, Lust for Life is the best album of Iggy Pop's solo career.

AMG Review by Mark Deming

Iggy Pop - American Caesar (1993 Post-Punk)

Boasting a big-name producer and appearances from a handful of actual mainstream rock stars, Brick by Brick was a remarkably successful attempt (critically, if not commercially) to create an "event album" around Iggy Pop, so the follow-up came as a surprise -- American Caesar was cut fast and loose in a New Orleans studio, with Malcolm Burn (hardly known for his work in hard rock) in the producer's chair and Pop's road band backing him up. But the real surprise was that American Caesar ranks with Pop's very best solo work. Dark, loud, and atmospheric, it's a far riskier album than Brick by Brick, lyrically following that disc's themes of America teetering on the edge of internal collapse with the same degree of hard-won maturity, but adding a wacked-out passion and force that recall the heady days of Raw Power. While Pop's group doesn't play with the subtlety of the studio cats on Brick by Brick (I'll leave it to others to debate if they won't or they can't), they also sound tight and forceful, like a real band with plenty of muscle and some miles under their belts. Eric Schermerhorn's guitar meshes with Pop's vocals as well as anyone he's worked with since Ron Asheton, and Malcolm Burn's production is clear and detailed but adds subtle textures that season the formula just right. The hard rockers are full-bodied ("Wild America," "Plastic and Concrete"), the calmer tunes still bristle with tension and menace ("Mixing the Colors," "Jealousy"), the few moments of calm sound sincere and richly earned ("Highway Song," "It's Our Love"), the manic rewritten remake of "Louie Louie" actually tops the version on Metallic K.O., and the title cut is a bizarre bit of spoken-word performance art that's as strange as the entirety of Zombie Birdhouse, and a rousing success where that album was a brave failure. In a note printed on the CD itself, Pop says of American Caesar, "I tried to make this album as good as I could, with no imitations of other people and no formula sh*t." And Pop succeeded beyond anyone's expectations; American Caesar is an overlooked masterpiece.

AMG Review by Mark Deming

Goran Bregovic/Iggy Pop - Arizona Dream (OST 1999)

Soundtrack from Emir Kusturica's Arizona Dream by Goran Bregović featuring the vocals and lyrics of Iggy Pop on tracks 1, 4 & 6 and the lyrics of Emir Kusturica as well as the vocals of Iggy Pop on track 10. In the film, apart from the music on soundtrack, there are also three songs of Django Reinhardt.