•
Rating: What a shame... It took them thirty years to get back together (29 to be precise) after the 1996 reunion attempt failed because Iggy Pop was too busy performing concerts and making money for the first time after a struggling career. Then it took them another three years to make a full album, after giving us a taste with "Skull Ring" in 2003, which was yet another piece in Iggy's discography, and after spending three years performing concerts around the world day in and day out.
One would really have expected something more from this "decent but unremarkable" album (a definition that's not mine but which I fully agree with). At least a good dose of raw and angry energy, with enough fuel - if nothing else - to ignite the fire that would have consumed everything with final fury, taking it all away like a ship leaving, burning in a grand Viking funeral, the bow turned towards the morning of an honorable end beyond the Pillars of Hercules of Rock'n'roll. Just to keep a bit of honor, for heaven's sake, instead of singing "My idea of fun is killing every one", unfortunately the old fan's heart would have wished that Iggy had found another way to tell us that even at 60 years old, he's just not having fun. Many things already heard (in the same "Weirdness" infinite echoes of the sounds of "American Caesar", 1993) but worsened by a demonstration of ennui infinitely more banal, in "I'm fried" the continuation (?) of "Little electric chair" and so forth for 12 somewhat useless songs where - as Alice Moore wrote - "I expected the energy of Funhouse and found the B-sides of Ugly Kid Joe" with Iggy confessing to us (in "You can't have friends") that "I wanna be your friend to the bitter end" and the guitar soundscape of Ron Ashton sliding away in little bursts that never wound (and just as well that Steve Albini was producing). Well, I think the bitter end is definitely here.
Tracklist and Lyrics
05 The Weirdness (03:45)
I feel so estranged
Fear runs around my brain
I had to leave, I could
Not stand the heat
They look at me with scorn
One more dead life was born
Formed from the clay
Of their unhappy ways
One word can just describe
Modern life comes to mind
This word alone
Puts the ache in my bones
It's weirdness, my dear
The weirdness is here
Weirdness
Weirdness
My, all this atmosphere
Chills my desire, dear
You're so attractive and
I am a man
Like the guy in Psycho
Voices tell me "hello"
There's death and danger here
For something is queer
One word can just describe
Modern life comes to mind
This word alone
It's the ache in my bones
It's weirdness, my dear
The weirdness is here
Weirdness
Weirdness
The weirdness
The weirdness
The weirdness
The weirdness
The weirdness
06 Free & Freaky (02:39)
The Stooges - Free and Freaky
I'm the kinda guy
Who don't pick up the phone
I sneak around the room
I bitch about and moan
People make me nervous
Pretty soon they'll leave me alone
Free and freaky in the USA
My sister went to war
She tied a guy up on a leash
I think about it sometimes
While I'm sittin' on the beach
I hate it when people look at me the wrong way
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
England and France
These cultures are old
The cheese is stinky
And the beer ain't cold
When i go over there i gotta walk bold
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Woah, today, my mind begins to stray
I sit around an old house
Schemin' in the dark
I'm walkin' all alone
In a bath robe, in the park
I feel a touch of evil
But I guess it'll be OK
Free and freaky in the USA
Alabama
Dali Lama
Baby Mama
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Rude madonna
Benihana
Antique father
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Free and freaky in the USA
Loading comments slowly
