Iggy Pop is a rock icon. He's influenced generations of rock bands from The Ramones to The Jesus & Mary Chain, from the New York Dolls to At The Drive-In. It's not just his music but also his attitude. On the 1976 Stooges live album 'Metallic K.O', Iggy tells a bottle throwing audience to "f**k off". His 1977 solo album 'Kill City' was recorded during weekend leave from the UCLA hospital where he was recovering from drug addiction. Nineteen ninety nine's 'Avenue B' meanwhile, documented the break up of Iggy's marriage and was produced by Don Was, best known for the hit single 'Walk The Dinosaur'. Go figure.
Let's face it Iggy is a dinosaur. Look at that gnarled and twisted body of his. He should be dead. Yet on his fourteenth solo effort 'Beat 'Em Up', Pop is still snapping and snarling away like some mad old uncle who smells of wee. Or at the very least Jack Daniels. It's pointless telling Iggy to piss off to the nursing home. He won't go quietly. Instead, he cranks up the volume once again, rinses his tonsils in acid and delivers another blast of tub-thumping punk metal.
If only... 'Beat 'Em Up' is a glorious mess lurching from the lunatic 'Drink New Blood', which would make Alice Cooper blush, to the ludicrous 'Howl' which had this reviewer's dog ripping up the stereo speakers. 'Beat 'Em Up' is at turns painful - the bruising title track and 'Death Is Certain'- and funny too - 'VIP' describes in graphic detail the surreal goldfish bowl life celebrities inhabit. Then there's 'It's All Shit' which is both painful and (arguably) funny. Sample lyric 'It 'Walks like shit, it talks like shit, it must be shit.' Get the drift?
'Beat 'Em Up' is not shit but ain't exactly loveable either. However, it does confirm that Iggy Pop can still kick up a fuss with the best of them even if the end result isn't as legendary as the man who produced it.
