Search - Iggy Pop :: Million in Prizes: The Anthology

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alexander laurence | Los Angeles, CA | 10/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Iggy took a little of The Doors and the MC5, and created Punk Rock. His music was dark. "I Want To Be Your Dog" was the first moment of Art Rock. This was Marcel Duchamp drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Iggy was the music at its most raw. The Stooges did two albums and they were out of here. Mr. Pop was a homeless junkie for a few years. He reformed the band with James Williamson and produced Raw Power. This was the heaviest American music ever made. Iggy Pop was a gifted lyricist. I forgot to add that everyone hated this band at this point. They had one hundred fans. He had a revival in the late 1970s and did a bunch of cool albums with David Bowie. He lived in Berlin and influenced plenty of post-punk bands and goth people. The early eighties was a good time for Iggy. A few mediocre albums. Later in that decade he had top 40 success with "Cry For Love." In the 1990s, Iggy Pop played big concerts in Europe and Asia. But he has always been called the Godfather of Punk: a title that he doesn't really like. Finally we have a career spanning double CD to look at the work. There are four punk songs from the first two albums. All the jazz noise and weirdness is omitted. There is a lot of Raw Power, since it's more musically advanced and even futuristic. This sound has been copied but never equaled. Then we have four songs from his two Berlin period albums: Lust For Live and The Idiot. This is the real solo Iggy. This guy is a riot. On songs like "Sister Midnight" and "The Passenger" he has influenced the whole goth movement, including especially Bauhaus and Siouxsie and The Banshees. CD two focuses on the more commercial stuff he did in the later 1980s, and early 1990s. Sometimes it works, on "I'm Bored," and "Run Like A Villain." Sometimes it doesn't. Unlike Bowie who produced whole albums that stunk, Iggy Pop would do albums with a few interesting moments that gave us hope. There are some collaborations included and the bizarre bits. Some live early songs are included. His last album before this, Skull Ring, was probably his best in ten years. This is for those people who need a little Iggy in their lives, but not the complete works. Along with Neil Young and Lou Reed, Iggy Pop is an American musical genius. He has become an icon. He has music on TV commercials. There is always hope with Iggy.

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A very good introduction to Iggy Pop

Ludwig J. Pluralist | Beacon, NY USA | 12/10/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Iggy Pop is an iconic figure, somewhat on the margins of rock `n roll and the entertainment industry, a cult figure, a charismatic whirling dervish messiah, and, miraculously, a long term survivor of rock `n roll excess.



Iggy Pop was/is also the lead singer and de facto leader of the Stooges, a band now understood to be as seminal as the Velvet Underground for punk rock and other forms of modern music. But whereas the VU were something like a group of grad student misfits, the Stooges were more a motley collection of trailer park dirtbags, from the wilds of Ypsilanti, Michigan (also tied to the great Detroit garage band/biker band scenes)



For these two reasons, this greatest hits package is divided, more or less into two: a Stooges/Iggy and the Stooges disk (along with selections from the Bowie produced Idiot and Lust For Life) and a solo disk. The Stooges cuts manage to convey the raw, wild power of the Stooges and thus to hint at their greatness as a band. The Bowie cuts, with their austere Berlin ambience, have aged well, even though Lust For Life has, by now (2005) been transformed by the culture industry into an overused commercial jingle, such as to sell Carnival Cruise bookings. I wonder what Iggy thinks about that?



Disk two covers some of Iggy's solo moments, and while the music becomes a bit more formulaic, it's still very good, as it becomes a blank canvas for Iggy to, well, be Iggy. Formulaic or not, his tunes here are catchy and fun. Real Wild Child is as close to bubblegum as he's ever come, but it's great bubblegum, right up there with, for example, Sweet or Joan Jett. Home is nothing less than a kick ass rock and roll dance number; someone ought to use it in a Broadway revue. In fact, his tongue-in-cheek duet with Debbie Harry is their version of an old prerock Broadway showtune, yet it rocks! Finally, starting with the delightfully noisy Wild America, the disk closes with Iggy taking things full circle, and returning to the Stooges; Iggy has finally located his inner Stooge and made peace with it.



This is highly recommended as either introduction to Iggy and/or the Stooges for those just beginning to check this music out, as well as for Iggy compleatists, who want to own every piece of product related to Iggy Pop and the Stooges."