The primeval music which he patented with The Stooges may have been back in fashion for a few years, but up until now Iggy Pop has done a sensationally bad job of exploiting the situation.
In 1999, he released 'Avenue B', a collection of spoken-word/jazz reveries in which, audaciously, he tried to act his age. A critical success and commercial disaster, it evidently panicked Iggy: 2001's 'Beat 'Em Up' ranks, amazingly, as one of the dumbest albums in a strenuously retarded career, at times perilously close to nu-metal.
Thank God, then, for 'Skull Ring'. Finally, it seems the venerable Iggy has realised that his own brand of nasty, brutish, reductive rock'n'roll is superior to practically any nasty, brutish, reductive rock'n'roll that has tried to supersede it. Presumably inspired by the great shows they'd been playing with J Mascis and Mike Watt, his first smart move is to bring Ron and Scott Asheton back into the fold. Four excellent tracks on 'Skull Ring' are effectively a Stooges reunion: as Ron Asheton's vicious, looping riff opens 'Little Electric Chair', and Iggy starts clapping and whooping along, it's clear that the gristle, electricity and madness these men harnessed over 30 years ago is still within their grasp.
It gets better. The title track is a sludgy surf anthem of sorts, with Iggy jubilantly chanting, "Skull rings! Fast cars! Hot chicks! Money!" And fortunately, the simple energy of the Stooges has infected Iggy's other collaborators on this entertaining, if slightly too long, album. His usual henchmen (led by Whitey Kirst and here christened The Trolls) raise their game from the grunt-metal morass that's seemed their default sound, so that even throwaway tunes like 'Whatever' are much more fun than usual.
Green Day crop up for a couple of songs - one of which, 'Private Hell', sounds like an affectionate fanboy update of 'The Passenger'. The lovely Peaches proves an excellent modernist influence, so that Iggy overdubs himself on her rudimentary and brilliant 'Rock Show', then invites her to join in on the ferocious grind of 'Motor Inn' ("I met a little girl with a heart of stone/She said she wanted to give me an instant bone."). Only Sum 41 really screw up with the blandly anthemic pop-punk of 'Little Know It All'. With a certain grinding inevitability, it's scheduled to be the first single.
"I'm a dead rock star, in the dead rock car," Iggy sings preposterously on 'Dead Rock Star', revisiting the arch croon he used to share with Bowie circa 'China Girl'. Here, though, as the Ashetons fire away magnificently in the background, he hasn't sounded as alive in years. Whatever next? A Detroit revival?
