If you’re planning on taking your own life tonight, may I
suggest Iggy Pop’s The Idiot.
Too soon?
Yes, it was thirty-two years ago tonight where Ian sat down
to a viewing of Werner Herzog’s Stroszek and
a spin of Iggy Pop’s The Idiot.
Then he went to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat.
His wife found him the next morning, and I assumed put all
of this together. It seems plausible. And The
Idiot is a really good album.
It time to think so; can you remember the first time you
heard it? If you haven’t yet, remember it, write it down. I’m curious to hear
what Iggy novices think about it or, like me, familiar with his repertoire to
the point where you can compare it to Idiot.
Truth is, I hated it. The
Idiot was so unlike anything else in Pop’s catalog, never mind that it
sounded like Iggy was just as loaded as he was during Kill City, it was just that he had Bowie funding the dope for him.
It’s confirmed with the fact that Bowie made RCA hold on to The Idiot for just a little while longer
so that Dave could be the first to market with a Berlin trilogy, making it seem
that he was the one who taught dum dum Jim Osterberg everything.
Actually, The Idiot
is the record that truly confirmed Pop was a certified genius, briefly breaking
away from that dumb Michigan
shtick just long enough to see that, even if he’s not fully in charge of his
capacities or the control board, Iggy Pop is capable of delivering a left-field
hit of epic proportions.
The sound is as unexpected today as it must of have sounded
back then, the claustrophobia is menacing and there’s a general unease
throughout it. This is the part of the review where I tell you that I really
like the record now, but I think it’s important to explain how this
weird-sounding thing planted a fucking seed in my head telling me to keep
coming back to it.
The Idiot is the
equivalent of sharing an 8-ball of cocaine with your friend and you decide to
start recording the room at 4:00 in the morning. It’s that time when your
forehead feels tingly and the coke becomes more of a need than anything else.
Oh wait, someone left this rhythm machine behind…
The irony is that the most “normal” song on the record is
the one that begins by naming off all the friends who have o.d.’d or died. “Dum
Dum Boys” produces a sensible song structure and good rock groove, but then
Iggy appears like he’s had a bottle of wine or three, singin’ “Dah Dah Dah Dah
Dum Dum Day.”
Because there are times after work, driving home just trying
to shake of the fact that you’re no longer at work, when I feel like singing
through the marbles of “All aboard for fun times,” just dreaming for a chance
to stay up late in a coke-fueled panic.
By “Tiny Girls,” the dawn is starting to creep through the
curtains when suddenly Iggy brings in a smooth sax. It takes the edge off,
particularly when Bowie
fucks around with the echo.
“Mass Production” is probably the best song Neu! Ever wrote,
mainly because Iggy Pop sings it. It’s the record’s forgotten treasure, a
big-rock ending to an anti-rock concept album with Iggy politely mentioning,
“By the way, I’m going for cigarettes” after David stops fucking around with a
synthesizer.
By my count, I’d say it took at least a dozen spins for me
to get comfortable with The Idiot’s
art-damaged interior, to find the pleasure in its icy restraints and outta mind
adventurism.
But once there, I was hooked
Get me a pack of Marlboro’s, Jim.
No comments:
Post a Comment