Musical Monday #16

My Musical Monday drop-down menu wasn't working so well -- so I took it apart and replaced it with a straight-forward link list. At the very least, it should encourage the lazier among you to have a butcher's. But yes, google inspired today's Musical Monday with this quote from the rock Iguana himself.

"Nihilism is best done by professionals." -- Iggy Pop

If anyone is wondering, no I didn't already do Iggy -- I made reference to him as the Godfather of Punk, but that was in the post about the Sex Pistols. Do pay attention.

The genius of Iggy Pop -- or perhaps more objectively the appeal -- to me of Iggy Pop is hard to define, as the best artists often are. Iggy Pop's commercial success has been very limited, I love the scene in Trainspotting where Diane calls him "Ziggy Pop". Mark corrects her and she says "Whatever. I mean, the guy's dead anyway." Frankly, I was surprised her character had even heard of Iggy Pop enough to get his name wrong -- a lot of people would have a hard time placing him. That is, until you start to mention songs like The Passenger and Lust for Life.

Iggy Pop's Raw Power is an incredible album. It exists when it was "Iggy and The Stooges", the strange time of his career after he was more than just The Stooges, but before his prolific solo career. Iggy was reportedly never very happy with the mixing of the original version of the album, too melodic for his liking perhaps -- and decades later a remastered version emerged, after a compromise was found between what came first, and Iggy's own idea of editing which involved demanding to know why certain dials weren't in the red. Raw Power describes itself in those two words alone.

Lester Bangs wrote of Iggy Pop with such admiration and passion, when his peers were criticising the basic music of The Stooges. They'd say, but anyone could do that. Lester Bangs comeback always seemed to be but anyone isn't -- he is. If you think anyone can do it -- and they probably can -- have a go yourself, Iggy Pop was the one up there with the courage to do it. That kind of attitude is what carried the Clash, The Ramones, the Sex Pistols into their own careers and to change the face of music.

But behind the energy and the passion, behind the manic dancing and the cutting himself on stage with beer bottles, there is another side to Iggy Pop and to The Stooges, particularly. The nihilism of songs like No Fun and I Wanna Be Your Dog have a lot in common with Lou Reed's music, and in turn with the heroin.
But Iggy Pop isn't dead at all, and I'll leave my own nihilism to the professionals like him.