Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 18/07/05
Label: Virgin

“Well I’m just a modern guy/Of course I’ve had it in the ear before.” That line, from 1977’s ”Lust For Life”, pretty much sums up the life, attitude and work of the feral, snarling alter-ego of one James Newell Osterberg, the punk avatar that is Iggy Pop and hidden behind the legends, half-truths and downright lies that surround this rock’n’roll figurehead is some of the most incendiary, influential and timeless music ever recorded. For those curious to scratch beyond the surface of reputation, ”A Million In Prizes” provides a thrilling rollercoaster of a history lesson.

Wisely sequenced in chronological order, ”A Million In Prizes” kicks off with the nihilistic triumvirate of ”1969”, ”No Fun” and ”I Wanna Be Your Dog”. As America’s hippy dream got stuck in the mud at Woodstock, Iggy’s band The Stooges eschewed all that went before and around them with these paeans to boredom and urban alienation, all wrapped up in riffs dragged up from rock’s most primordial swamp and, in the process, created punk almost a decade early.

The Stooges’ quest for making the ultimate rock’n’roll statement arrived with 1970’s extraordinary ”Funhouse” album, criminally represented here by just the magnificent ”Down On The Street”, but by this point, heroin had replaced LSD as the drug of choice and The Stooges disintegrated as Iggy and drummer Scott Ashton became full-blown addicts.

Rescued from oblivion by uber-fan David Bowie, The Stooges re-emerged with a new line-up for 1973’s ”Raw Power” album. Despite Bowie’s attempt at knob-twiddling, the album was stripped of its power with a mix best described as polite though the versions of ”Search & Destroy”, ”Gimme Danger” and the title track that appear here are Iggy’s superior remixed models from 1997 that finally saw these gems restored to their intended glory.

Following the inevitable demise of The Stooges in a whirlwind of bad drugs and bad management, Iggy was thrown a lifeline once again by David Bowie. Bowie, himself recovering from shovelling spade loads of the Devil’s dandruff up his nose, high-tailed it to Berlin to clean-up and, taking Iggy with him, created the glacial, metronomic splendour of 1977’s ”The Idiot” and ”Lust For Life” while concocting his own masterpiece with “Heroes”. Of the two, ”The Idiot” is the most startling album and, as exemplified by ”Nightclubbing” and ”China Girl”, saw Iggy conquer European mores and sensibilities with an almost indecent ease.

By the 1980s, punk and new wave had finally caught up with his legacy and Iggy found himself competing with the very thing that he had created. Like most artists of his generation, the 80s proved to be an unkind decade though the second disc succeeds in cherry-picking his finest moments. ”I’m Bored” and ”I Need More” hark back to his Detroit origins while the likes of 1988’s ”Cold Metal” showed some kind of return to form after the less-than-satisfying third collaboration with Bowie that resulted in Iggy’s only UK hit, the dire “Real Wild Child (Wild One)”. Fittingly, having dipped its toes in Iggy’s patchy 90s output, the anthology goes full circle with punk’s most notorious granddad re-united with The Stooges’ Ashton brothers on the bludgeoning ”Skull Ring”.

Now resident in Florida and often found on the golf course, it’s tempting think that World’s Forgotten Boy will end his days at the Del Boca Vista retirement home. But for those keenly awaiting The Stooges’ first London gig in 32 years, Iggy Pop will always remain the streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm.

    by James Marshall