Stooges - The Weirdness

The Stooges napalmed their way into rock history with a trilogy of ground breaking records that seethed, gnashed and chewed their way through the rule book of rock n’ roll and wrote a new bible, one which acts as diverse as Mudhoney, Dirtbombs and the Mekons took up and rolled with.

Post Stooges, every other member but Iggy has floundered, as he soldiered on through collaborators such as David Bowie and Steve Jones, to backing bands such as the Trolls and even Sum 41 and even diverse styles from lounge jazz to 80s cock rock. But history rolls around and it’s back to square one for Iggy Pop, back to the primal sludge he sprang from, back to the Stooges.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way, this ain’t no Funhouse, only a couple of tracks come close to their old oozing magic. The title cut is a wobbly, sinister drama and Free And Freaky is a slam banger of garage proportions.

The rest of the record is simply straight up hard rock as played by the Stooges, where they used to slither and howl they now simply pound and shred. Take old gems like Dirt that gave the records breathing room, wide open moments of pure slow crawl shuddering menace. The Weirdness only has one speed, fast, and the record suffers for it.

Even worse is Iggy, his lyrics are awful, a throw back to the worst of WASP, singing about asses and dicks, and occasionally his voice is so off it ruins the song, just take the stupid tuneless warble he has on The End Of Christianity, a song only saved by a flamethrower guitar solo at the end.

But hey Iggy's never been Pavarotti but he's always managed to string a well sung note, even on the 60s Stooges at their most primitive and bolshy.

The Weirdness isn’t awful, it presses the right buttons in that it does rock, and the Ashetons are on fine form. It’s Iggy that slightly soils this record, which is a pity as he’s been on fine form recently up to this album, both lyrically and vocally.

What went wrong?

Out now on Virgin.