Iggy Pop
The Idiot

THE REVIEW

I went for a stroll at the mall and thought "wait, let me go to the record store and see if I find something nice... I already have a half idea..." I head to the "I" section and look for Iggy Pop, Lust For Life. I don't know why, but that album has always held a certain interest for me even though I didn't know what was inside besides Lust For Life and The Passenger (which are reasons enough). Maybe it's Iggy's big face on the cover in a yearbook-style photo that inspires sympathy (just missing a dedication from a best friend "to my best with love xxx"). I find it. But only in a double disc edition with The Idiot. €7.90. 2 discs. Oh well, let's go for it.

I go home and put Lust For Life in the player. Cool. I change the disc and put on The Idiot. It starts with a slow rhythm from a determined bass and cutting guitars. It reminds me of another artist in terms of sound. David Bowie, in the 70s, more precisely in Low, the first of the Berlin trilogy. I look at the album booklet for a moment, and David Bowie's name goes hand in hand with Iggy Pop in all the songs.
Meanwhile, the second track, "Nightclubbing," starts, and it really feels like going nightclubbing with the White Duke and the Iguana, surrounded by the fumes of alcohol and drugs in a decadent red-light district of a European city.

I go to learn more about the album I know nothing about, and I find confirmations to my hypotheses. The album is from 1977 (the same as Low) and was practically written four-handed by Iggy Pop and Bowie. In that year, they "fled" America for Europe to detox from their deep drug dependencies, residing first in a castle in France (where most of The Idiot was recorded) and then moving to Berlin where Bowie would start on Low.
The third track "Funtime" has electronic sounds and simple, sharp, and direct guitar hits. You can hear Bowie in the choruses "Aaaall aboooooard for fuuuntiiiime!" One of the best songs on the album.
Bowie is the producer, arranger, and takes care of the recording. A "homemade" album by Pop and him, basically.
"Baby" has a distorted bass line with a ghostly sound that follows the vocal line while in the chorus there's a little organ from a house of horrors. Is this horror rock?!
It is also discovered that during that period Bowie was playing the piano in Iggy Pop's live shows. Gives you goosebumps.
And here is the biggest (personal) surprise of the album: "China Girl". Used to hearing David Bowie's version, I thought it was his, but the Duke's is actually a cover (even though you can't really call it a cover since he also wrote it). The version on The Idiot is different, it's more oriental and garage. Bowie will later keep the vocal melodic line, but the rest clearly feels like it's from the 80s.

"Dum Dum Boys" has a slow and decadent rhythm, probably a child of the toxic and confused times of previous years. Iggy had locked himself up in a mental hygiene institute to try to clean up. Ziggy Stardust then convinced him to go to Europe with him and take the reins of life and career again.
"Tiny Girls" is a serenade with a sax, and the final track "Mass Production" continues the slow and heavy rhythms of an industry working under gravity twice the normal and a worker named Iggy Pop complains. Perhaps these were the last screams heard by Ian Curtis before he died: when he was found dead, The Idiot was spinning on the turntable.
I didn't expect anything from The Idiot, I didn't know anything, and I didn't want anything. Yet it struck me. It may be Bowie's influence. It may be the fact that it allowed me to better understand that period that I like so much of those artists I like so much. It may be the fixation of the moment.

It is not a listen for everyone, I am aware of that. Most of you, at the minute 0:43 after 30 seconds of doubtful and disgusted faces, will say, "what the hell is this crap?!?!". I know. It's inevitable. It's Iggy Pop. But I highly recommend it to those who like Berlinese Bowie or simply don't know any other Iggy Pop besides Raw Power and the albums with The Stooges.
Peace