The Stooges - The Weirdness (Virgin)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
We're in a good mood. We've been lucky enough to see The Stooges recently, and we know how much fun they have playing, how much they mean what they're doing, and what delight they bestow upon an audience. Unlike the rest of the music press, we're actually excited about the prospect of a new Stooges album, rather than terrified it's going to be awful. Steve Albini's producing. Surely he wouldn't let them drop a complete turd?
But Iggy Pop's in no mood to try to be friends with us. "Rock critics wouldn't like this at all... you can't tell me this is not a suave thing to do!" he says in the opening verse of 'Trollin', as if that numbs the effect of any criticism I might have of the record. But, Ig, we can tell you it ain't a suave thing to do if we want to - especially if you insist on using decidedly un-suave lyrics like "my dick is turning in to a tree"...
However, despite being consistently lyrically trite, there's nothing on 'The Weirdness' that is completely devoid of merit. In fact, you'll be pleased to hear that it's not one bit of a stylistic departure from the first three albums. Tellingly, the best thing about it is that with only a little bit of imagination, despite the 34 year gap between this and the preceding 'Raw Power', it does sound like the band have carried on playing together each and every day, just not released anything. They do the blissed-out improvised jazz saxophone thing on 'Passing Cloud', the Bowie-aping thing again (the title track here is so, so Ziggy...), and a good proportion of it succeeds charmingly. On 'My Idea of Fun', they even create a new classic Stooges track with a nihilist rant that would have fitted comfortably on 'Fun House'. Iggy's idea of fun, you ask? "Killing everyone", of course.
They might have lost something in terms of political and cultural importance, but 'The Weirdness' does simple, dumb riffs very well indeed. And it doesn't matter that it sounds exactly like the Stooges, which would be a problem if this were any other band, simply for the reason that - praise be - this is The Stooges again! 'You Can't Have Friends' and 'ATM' are cases in point, but the Europe-berating 'Free and Freaky' has a riff that'll make you so mega happy that it doesn't matter that the lyrics are, once again, appalling - "the cheese is stinky and the beer ain't cold", he says of France and England respectively. It makes "it's 1969 OK, all across the USA" seem like Shakespeare, don't it?
Elsewhere in the 'dumb but fun' category, 'Greedy Awful People' benefits most from a distinct lack of intelligence or over-thought, clocking in as it does at just over two minutes - no longer than it needs to be. Mr. Pop and knows it required being short, too - 'this is the last chorus, I don't wanna bore us', he sings towards the song's climax, coming dangerously close to quoting the title of a Roxette best of. 'Mexican Guy', further down the line, honestly snarls like The Jesus Lizard, and as such is f**king great.
But yeah, given that most of these people made 'Raw Power' and 'Fun House', 'The Weirdness' is a bit disappointing. The one non-original member, Mike Watt (bass legend formerly of The Minutemen), doesn't show off his impressive ability on the four string nearly as much as you'd like him too, and Iggy's voice does seem to have lost some of that violence that makes his early work still so compelling and relevant to this day. They play however with conviction, captured excellently by engineer Albini, the delivery and the songs being just about strong enough to make the whole project worthwhile.
The real problem, apart from a few duff tracks (there's no need for the likes of 'I'm Fried' or 'She Took My Money'), is that the very reason for their being a fourth Stooges album in existence today is nowhere near as strong as the desire to shake things up that prompted the creation of the first three. This lot aren't trying to change the world any more. Been there, done that. Got the T shirt, but didn't want to wear it in case it got covered in my own blood mid gig. This is about their idea of fun. Nothing more.
So, as good as the first three albums? Oh good Lord no. But better than anything at least Iggy Pop has done in many, many years? Certainly. It's far from the travesty almost every other reviewer would have you believe (the reason for the hate directed at this project? Well, they're sitting ducks, aren't they? It's much easier not to say something nice...), and yes, it is weird hearing such an old man sounding like a spoilt little brat, but Iggy and The Stooges never grew up, did they? And that's why they can get away with these half formed opinions where others would just sound foolish.
Stream 'My Idea of Fun' HERE.
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