The Stooges - The Weirdness

Their rudely urgent brand of earsplitting garage rock and bawdy English blues straddled the '60s into the '70s, but, sadly, the Stooges disintegrated in 1973, leaving their insurgent leader Iggy Pop to power through more than three decades of music alone. But a phone call to the surviving members and siblings Ron (guitar) and Scott Asheton (drums) to play on Pop's 2003 record Skull Ring led to the improbable: a full-on reunion of a band that served as a precursor to the so-called birth of punk rock that would follow three years after its breakup. Employing producer Steve Albini (Nirvana) to capture a similar bare minimum to their legendary three-album catalog--three power chords and an archaic rhythm section co-anchored by bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE)--these Stooges let Pop's in-your-face vocals capture the mundane: cruising for women, teenage autonomy, and finding love in a cash machine. But never fear that these late-middle-agers (Pop turns 60 a month after the album's release) feel the need to impede the volume. Songs such as "Trollin'," "Greedy Awful People," "She Took My Money," and "Mexican Guy" detonate like outtakes from 1970's Fun House. And with Iggy Pop showing no signs of slowing down and the Ashetons having nothing else to do, this band of Stooges stands a chance of outliving the first one. --Scott Holter Amazon.com

A Lyrical Swamp

For four years, The Stooges clicked in gigs around the world, as Ron Ashton (g), Scott Ashton (d), Steve Mackay (sax) and Mike Watt (b) complimented an energized Iggy (Pop) Stooge in revisiting some sensational times that were nearly 35 years in the rear-view mirror.

That is what makes this first studio endeavor - released in March 2007 - since Raw Power (1973) so frustrating. Ron Ashton has some scorching guitar solos and Mackay picks up where he left off in Fun House (1970), but the songwriting is as mediocre as any material Iggy has churned out since the mid-1990s.

The lyrics are directed at the decadence of society - ATM, Greedy Awful People, The End of Christianity - with sex, drugs and celebrity satire thrown into the mix - Trollin', Mexican Guy, Idea of Fun - but they sound like ideas scratched onto notebook paper only minutes before the session was going to start.

In a twist, the dozen CD cuts are bolstered by four bonus tracks on the album. There is no excuse for the lyrical swamp, but the incredible work by Ron Ashton saves the "comeback" from being an absolute waste of time. September 8, 2008

Give It A Chance..

I had never heard a stooges song before this album so this was my introduction to the stooges. i absolutely loved the raw energy. it was really hard to take this disc out of my cd player for a couple weeks. i read multiple reviews about the album complaining it wasn't the same stooges..well duh! they've all aged, not to mention iggy is sober now. i saw them live a few weeks after i bought the album and they played alot of the new material and it's so amazing live. before you listen to this album just keep an open mind. July 28, 2008

Disappointing, but hardly surprising

You were expecting a great Stooges record? Never gonna happen, but not a terrible Iggy record. Ron's got some great riffs and Steve blows his brains out.

Check out Mighty High...In Drug City instead! June 20, 2008

Nice to have The Stooges back...

Listen to this album twice.

On the first listen, allow yourself to be swept along by the ephiphany of just how prescient this band was in 1969. If anyone else on this planet - or any other planet or plane of existence, for that matter - had released it today, there would be angry mobs cussing and screaming about how the record was nothing more than a rip-off of the styles of other, older punk bands such as The Sex Pistols and The New York Dolls. And, were it any other band, that would be the case.

The error in that logic lies in the fact that it WAS 1969 when 'The Stooges' was issued. It was followed by 'Funhouse' and 'Raw Power,' two albums every bit as good. And all three were well ahead of anything else at the time. Thus, the music on this album is almost 40 years in the mnaking! So, relish in the joy of good, stripped down attitude-exacerbated rock. Buy this album for that alone and you will find many of the melodies - Free & Freaky being a prime example - will be lodged in your head for days.

On the second listen, you'll have to hear the lyrics and here was where the album exhibits some weakness. By and large, I found them to be less raw and honest, less stunning in their nihilistic fervor and - dare I say it - a bit pedestrian at times. Maybe it's me or maybe it's the company these songs have to keep these days - the misogynistic, racism of some hip-hop and the oft-times psychotic bellowings of hard-core - that have muted the impact.

..or maybe the lyrics are just a bit weak.

Still well worth the price of admission. January 22, 2008

Igg's Last Hurrah!

At the very least, the band will receive a payday they will remember. This is the reunion that would not happen due to Iggy's hyperinflated ego for what ... sixteen years since it was first speculated? That the Asheton's were incapable of any normal existence without the Igster? I'm sorry, but this mishmash is nothing but a midlife crisis for a guy who has done and lost more than any mere mortal who has ever walked the planet, and that would be James Jewel Osterberg. The fact that the Ashetons would actually show up is amazing. That Mike Watt, bless his heart would sign on is a message from the gods. But the resulting project is a joke. It might make a good instrumental album, but that would be it. I have no idea what epiphany could have roused this sleeping ogre. I would have to hazard a guess that the death of Greg Shaw may have played a part. He was the last cheerleader of The Great Myth and had a lot of us aboard that train, myself included. I'm really stunned. The album sucks, the tours are doing OK, I just hope the other guys get a well deserved cut this time. January 9, 2008

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