New Iggy & The Stooges Album This Year....Steve Albini Producing...

uuhhhh played the vinyl last night and its not a very good album at all. It just doesn't sound like the Stooges. Really lame heavy metal guitar riffing and Iggy sounds well....like a weak old man with nothing left to give and less to say. I usually like Steve Albini's unvarnished recordings but it sounds like they bashed out some lame riffs and he slapped some guide vocals down then they just said "okay that'll do, lets get back out on tour." I thought at worst it would be on a par with American Caeser or Brick By Brick (pretty decent iggy albums) but its not even as good as Naughty Little Doggy (if the word good can be used in conjunction with that effort). The 1st song on the bonus disc O Solo Mio is not bad through but the cover of I Wanna Be Your Man is a waste of space. Interestingly the last song is based on an old Minutemen riff Watt must have been playing in the studio. Iggy ruins it with a titanically stupid lyric about 'Sounds Of leather' and i usually love Iggys' stupid lyrics which are base and rock'n'roll (see the original Stooges and Funhouse). I'll try it again tonight to see if it improves.

 

I've been a Stooges fan for over 30 years and was pretty excited when I heard they were recording a new album. Then the reviews came out and most were less than complimentary, so I held off buying the album. Anyway, I was in our local indie store last week and they had the vinyl copy, which was just too tempting to pass up.

Well, I must say that I like it. To me this is definitely a Stooges record and not an Iggy solo album. Iggy's lyrics might look less than wonderful on paper but work just fine in the context of the album. As for Iggy's vocals, well I think he sounds great with the slightly disconnected sound working really well, but at the end of the day it's the rest of the band (in particular Ron Asheton) that really define this as an unmistakable Stooges record.

I would suggest that Stooges fans give this one a chance (even if you don't really like it after a couple of listens, persevere for a bit longer).

 

words of wisdom ! But in these days of coca-cola, kleenex culture, instant gratification is all people want. Long drinks are too sophisticated to taste, so it's immediately "sucks", "bad", "too old". Obsession with youth is king. A nice overview of all the critics who pan the album is interesting, they all say the same thing. Which is they listened to it half of once. And they prefer something fresh ie young. Even if it's at best not even as good as all this unlistenable Stooges stuff folded down in mono on Bomp.

 

hey, I hear that new Timbaland album is off th' hook!

Seriously though, the Stooges record does get better with more listening.
It is a primal force all it's own. There is a good interview with Iggy in the latest Rolling Stone.

 

I picked up the vinyl recently. Not really impressed by the sound. Claustrophobia & I Wanna Be Your Man should have been on the cd! Claustrophobia is different and dirty sounding and has no bass!

 

So, what do all of you think of the sound of the vinyl in comparsion to the cd?

 

I'm spinning it tonight at at huge volume, so will tell !

 

Natural heavy, heavy bass, natural drums, natural guitar, natural singing (ie not digitised), the vinyl surpasses the CD tenfold. The bass is booming HARD ! THUMPING ! THE SOUND IS A JUGGERNAUT ! I A/B ed with the CD, and thought the CD is mastered at a huge volume, once you push the vol button on the vinyl, it smokes the CD.
In fact, I now can say that anyone who listened to this on CD didn't really listen to the finished album. yet. Get the real deal.

 

Are those tracks available on Itunes for those who don't own a turntable?

 

nope, apart from I wanna be your man. O solo mio is a bonus on the japanese CD pressing (which sounds better than the US pressing, just kidding, I haven't bought it... yet !)

 

I concur.

I suspected I would like it more as I heard it more. Many of my eternal favorite albums, initially, seemed less than satisfactory.

I still don't like the mastering, though. I plan on getting the vinyl version with the different mastering. I've read that it's better.

 

You betcha !

 

My Idea Of Fun was playing in my portable the other day and when the chorus started I got chills thinking about the West Virginia incident a few days ago...

 

Really? I think the vinyl sounds bad. It's sounds really muddy. The highs could have been brought out a bit more.

 

For the record, I think the album is great.

 

The US vinyl was mastered at Trutone (New York) by Carl Rowatti, will the UK vinyl be done at abbey road.

JG

 

What, there's two different pressings ? Mine sounds great, but I have no clue which one it is (probably the english one).

 

I finally heard this album and I like it a lot! (I'm referring to the songs and the playing - I'll leave the 'audiophile' aspect to those who actually have good ears).

I think Iggy has once and for all established that he is the 'Bob Dylan' of the proto-punk generation. Iggy has a 40-year body of work that chronicles the 'seedy' low-lifestyle that we all have come to know as 'punk' in the same way that Dylan has chronicled the 'folk' lifestyle. Maybe his greatest peer is Lou Reed in that respect.

What is great is that the Stooges are not trying to be anything other than who they are - a bunch of old farts from the trailer park lusting after the ladies' a**es and commenting on the sad bizarre things they are seeing in the world around them. They are not pretending that it is still 1969 and they are 21, but they are cranky nasty senior-citizen rockers who still don't give a damn about what other people think. They get a lot of credit just for still being alive after all these years. And yet not only are they alive, but they are just as genuine as they were when they started out.

And my ears didn't bleed after listening to this. And I could actually remember some of the songs. Which I can't say the same for many records by the current crop of crap that is coming out these days.

 

Absolutely spot on description!

 

It's remarkable how this album divides: 4 stars in Mojo, bad reviews in NY and LA Times; message boards heap praise and vilification; nine pages of back-and-forth on this forum...for me, initial disappointment, followed by repeated listens and then a complete inability to get most of the album's riffs and many of the lyrics out of my head. A serene acceptance washed over me, and I really find myself playing it with semi-obsessive regularity. A couple of the songs add nothing to the Stooges legacy, and some make perfect sense for defiant and leathered Detroit punks in their late '50's/early '60's, middle digits extended.

I feel a re-jiggering of the track order and the substitution of "O Solo Mio" (a bonus track on the excellent vinyl version) for one of the lesser 4/4 numbers and the album would have led to greater critical acceptance. Overall, I quite agree with ZepTAlica's assessment above. And bloody hell are they still amazing live.

 

Interesting Ken, what is the order you would put on your ipod ?

 

I don't think there is two different releases.

 

Ok, so that's who Carl is! The vinyl is fantastic, in my opinion.

 

Touche' That is in fact one of the best reviews I've seen of this album.

Here's our review (over at cryptmagazine.com)

http://cryptmagazine.com/220494.html