Iggy Pop Still Lusts For (Real) Life

originally published October 17, 2001

iggypop-benwest1.jpg Illustrations by Ben West

Humanity is at its lowest point, with greed and hatred and selfishness the rule. Make a lot of money, they tell kids, and you'll be happy. Make more money, they tell adults, and you'll be happy. Piss on anyone who gets in your way, and for God's sake, don't be honest: not with yourself and certainly not with anyone else. Put on your mask and act like you don't give a shit just as long as you have your DVD or your SUV. What are we producing or creating? Nothing. We're just cogs in the wheel, being good little consumers for The Powers That Be, deaf, dumb, blind and willfully stupid. Where's the heart? Dammit, where's the soul?

Are you pissed off? So is Iggy Pop. The 54-year-old "Godfather of Punk" has always had a bug up his butt, but on his latest album Beat Em Up (Virgin), the once and future Stooge sounds crankier than he's ever been, and it's about time.

Born James Newell Osterberg in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Iggy Pop is a classic rock and roll myth of adventures on the brink of the abyss. As a teen, he wanted to create a band whose music would be furious, sexually-charged, and aggressive. He formed The Psychedelic Stooges in 1967. The quartet shortened the name to The Stooges and a self-titled debut was released a year later, then came a follow-up in 1970 titled Funhouse. Both have become rock classics, and can be pointed to as the official beginning of what would become known as punk rock. The band's live shows were adrenalinized, sloppy, loud, obnoxious and inspiring. Despite serious drug-taking and being at one another's throats, The Stooges managed to release another explosive collection, Raw Power, in 1973. The album was a glorious, hellbound, rock and roll train wreck. By '74, Pop and the Stooges were strung out and called it quits for a second (and final) time.

After a brief spell of homelessness and heroin addiction, Pop made an attempt to clean himself up and began writing and recording some new tunes around '77. The Idiot and Lust For Life, both issued in '77, were produced and co-written by David Bowie. There were elements of sleaze and menace, but overall they were upbeat and musically sophisticated. (Lust For Life became an essential item; the title track was used prominently in the soundtrack of the hit film Trainspotting in 1996.)

Pop's career was inconsistent and musically confused through most of the 1980s, but by 1990's Brick By Brick, he had regained his musical strength and focus, resulting in his first U.S. gold-certified album and top-20 hit single, "Candy." Pop tried to get edgy on his '96 album Naughty Little Doggie, but it was patchy at best with only a few tunes approaching the scathing rock spirit of The Stooges. In 1999, he released the uncharacteristically laid-back Avenue B. But his more "refined" musical approach was strictly a detour, as the killer new Beat Em Up is a balls-out rock and roll winner - musically, philosophically and lyrically.


iggypop-benwest2.jpg
Pop sets the stage with the opener "Mask," a searing condemnation of... well, everything. A string of rants laced together like Dennis Miller on crank, he yells at jerks, grabbers and "junkie fratboys." The breakdown in the middle is as brilliant as anything Iggy has done since The Idiot or Lust For Life: "Irony in place of balls /Balls in place of brains /Brains in place of soul /Where's the soul?" Goddamn fuckin' a right, where's the soul. Iggy doesn't have the answers, just ranting and raving, but when it's so on-the-mark like on "Ugliness," "Savior" and especially "It's All Shit," who gives a damn. Maybe there are no answers.

Still and all, Iggy still has a humor about him, and perhaps the most telling song on the record is the last. A stream of consciousness rap about being a star, "V.I.P." sheds a little light on the completely ridiculous trappings of fame and being a celebrity, pointing out that these larger-than-life people are regular assholes like you and me. Perhaps that's Iggy Pop's job, pissing on the cover to reveal the plain, ugly, ordinary package inside. In any event, Beat Em Up is Iggy Pop's strongest record in years, and his meanest. And with that little bit of knowledge, it's nice to know there's people out there who refuse to give in and lie down. The question is, though... how many of us are willing to rant, rave and possibly fight against those who hold us down? Sadly, I doubt most of us would bother. We're too busy watching "Survivor."