Oh Iggy; We’re not always so quick to deny anyone earning an honest crust, but seeing Iggy Pop shilling out his credibility for car insurance fair broke our hearts. You invented punk rock, man – don’t piss it all away extolling the virtues of convenient cover quotations. So would he earn our forgiveness via an urgent immersion in half a dozen of his best songs? You fuckin’ bet he would.
‘FUNTIME’ (from ‘THE IDIOT’)
Iggy was a wreck in 1977, yet managed to make a pair of era-defining albums in Lust For Life and The Idiot, both under the tutelage of David Bowie. Funtime’s suggestion, “I’m gonna get stoned and run around”, romances the ill behaviour of the past in a distortion-sodden stomper. When Iggy deadpans, “All aboard for funtime”, you know he has a bad, bad definition of fun.
‘SEARCH AND DESTROY’ (from ‘RAW POWER’)
The last Stooges album proper, ear-splittingly loud in the mix, showcased a frayed rock band on its last legs. “The world’s forgotten boy” unwittingly inspired a generation of kids to pick up guitars with this song and make prog rock go away overnight. It’s looser and more jarring than previous Stooges outings, and remains a perfect monument to rock nihilism.
‘TURN BLUE’ (from ‘LUST FOR LIFE’)
Venture beyond the album’s title track and you’ll happen upon this uncharacteristically mellow-sounding song. Bowie-heavy on the vocal track, it shows Iggy to be a fractured soul, vulnerable while “they’re stepping on our hearts”, but not yielding to any kind of popular definition of a ballad as he pleads “Accept me, don’t reject me, don’t forget me”.
DOWN ON THE STREET (FUN HOUSE)
Opener to the second Stooges album, possibly the most kick-ass record of all time, this sets out the stall perfectly. A textbook riff from Ron Asheton (who sadly died in January) beckons Iggy over to yell like a demented demon all over it, espousing the life of demented danger he genuinely lived to its darkest extremes.
‘I GOT A RIGHT’ (SINGLE)
Another punk-predicting release from half a decade before it was officially born, I Got A Right presents a cut-out-and-keep blueprint for the young pretenders to follow. It’s worth restating, bands simply didn’t make records that sounded like this at the time, and if songs like these didn’t make it onto Stooges albums it yells at maximum volume for the ones that did.
‘1969’ (from THE STOOGES)
Others attempted to document the demise of the 60s in song, but few realised the peaks of authenticity illustrated here. “Well it’s 1969, OK, war across the USA. It’s another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do” is simplicity itself, yet perfectly heralded the arrival of one of the most anarchic sonic forces rock music has ever witnessed.
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