Iggy Pop
Best Of... Live

THE REVIEW

In 1996, the old Iggy, following the release of "Naughty Little Doggie", released (or, more likely, it was decided by the record label, but anyway) a greatest hits based on his entire career, with the uniqueness of being recorded live.

We have no information about the band that accompanies him, the recordings come from three different tours: '77 (the same tour on which "TV Eye" was recorded, and in fact a couple of songs from this album come from there), '86 and '88. Neither the internal booklet nor Wikipedia are of any help, so we can only make assumptions.

With the formalities out of the way, let's move on to the album itself. It's immediately noticeable that the audio quality isn't the best, with frequent feedback, echoes, and the mixing itself isn't top-notch; however, what is lacking technically is more than made up for by the enormous energy the songs exude. The selection of recordings was careful, offering the best one could expect from Iggy: power and passion.

The setlist, like any good "greatest hits", is well divided between the best of his solo work ("The Passenger", "Sister Midnight", "Some Weird Sin", "Real Wild Child") and the top tracks from the Stooges' repertoire ("1969", "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "T.V. Eye", "Gimme Danger"): the songs, in this live setting, take on a much more energetic connotation, often venturing into hard rock, if not even heavy metal. This is the case with the thundering opening "Raw Power", the classic "Lust for Life", and "Nightclubbing", which transforms from a cold minimal track into a warm blues; the closing "Search and Destroy" even edges into hardcore punk territories.

In essence, an excellent purchase for those unfamiliar with Iggy, but also a good live album that fans will enjoy!