That's right, this album is far better than "Lust For Life", Iggy's best known and best loved solo album that came right after this. In contrast to the Stooges albums and "Lust For Life", this album does not solely rely on overdriven guitars and loads of heady attitude (although the distorted and wah-inflected lead guitar on "Dum Dum Boys" here kicks and lounges with perfected sleaze) to make its point. In contrast, there are synthesizers (Synthesizers? Iggy?) and creepy, sinuous bass and drums, courtesy of David Bowie, who lent his band (Carlos Alomar, Tony Sales, Hunt Sales, and himself), his production, his keyboards, and his songwriting talent to Iggy, who was trying to come back to the music industry again clean. Bowie wrote much of the music on this album, but it is wholly Iggy's - the lyrics are masterful on this album, and the wasted Ig wrote every word and more than a little of the music. The eight tracks on the album go like this.
1 Sister Midnight - A distinctive, kicking drum line, clever bass and guitar, and synth bleeps characterize this one. Pop uses a gravelly and incredibly melodic bass-baritone throughout this song and much of the album. Bowie's wacky backing vocals are high and make this a great song.
2 Nightclubbing - The title is self-explanatory. Do you recognize the beginning drum beat? That's right, they are very similar to the beginning drums on Nine Inch Nails' infamous hit "Closer". But the track is much more musically sophisticated than that animalistic rant, centering on a down-toned decadent feeling especially suited to the lyrical content.
3 Funtime - This is a kind of uptempo punky song with echoing drums. Iggy gets a bit Stooge-y here by sneering about having fun with Bowie wailing backup, although Ig's mood throughout the album is pretty subdued).
4 Baby - Creeping down the cold corridor of the Berlin studio accompanied by subtle drums and fuzzy bass, tinkling piano frames this rant about trying to repair a fracturing relationship.
5 China Girl - By far the most famous song off this album, thanks to Bowie's bubbly dance-pop cover hit, "China Girl" is much more abrasive and frightening here because of the way Iggy handled the ending. But there is no moment exactly like the one here where the girl oddly tells him to shut up and then shushes him to sleep. This is a famous classic. Throughout the album, Iggy has increasingly shown how well he can sing, and this remains the definitive showpiece for the range of his vocal quality.
6 Dum Dum Boys - By far the greatest song Iggy ever recorded without the Stooges, "Dum Dum Boys" has some of the best reptilian, snakelike distorted guitar ever recorded (it literally drips with sleaze and disgust). Bowie's cocktail piano is perfect, and the rhythm section just locks together with a beautiful force. And guess what the song is about...the Stooges. Iggy sings here with stunning power about how much he misses his old comrades. Thank God this song goes on for seven minutes.
7 Tiny Girls - Cringe-inducing title, especially given Iggy's sexual history, but great song. Ig's lyrics here are much more intelligent than he ever was before. Keeping to the jazzy, slightly funky electronic vibe, Bowie lays down a beautiful saxophone solo. If anything else proved this was not a Stooges album and never could be, this sax solo is it.
8 Mass Production - The longest song on the LP, this eight-minute dirge staggers along and begins with soundscapes straight out of Bowie's "Low" (which Bowie had just released) and more sleazoid guitar and sinuous bass and drums. Iggy's despair is at its worst here, and that's how the album ends.

So, there it is...not an album to listen to when you're feeling down. Just ask Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the great postpunk band Joy Division, who notoriously and infamously committed suicide after listening to this album (not that the LP caused his death - he had been having serious problems with depression and epilepsy before that). My favorite song is "Dum Dum Boys", which just lacerates everything in its path. This was one of Iggy and Bowie's artistic triumphs.

Iggy Pop made his official debut as a solo artist with this record and has struggled to scale the heights of this brilliant album since. Drugged up & boozed up after The Stooges broke up, Iggy was in the midst of a downward spiral when Bowie dragged him off to Berlin, got him sobered up (somewhat) and helped him write a couple of rockin' albums (see Lust for Life). In 1977 when this was released, Iggy said in an interview "I'm not a punk anymore!"... when The Ramones, The Sex Pistols & The Clash were only beginning Iggy had already proved all he could to punk and was moving on. Bowie's influence is heavy here, providing brilliant and catchy music for Iggy to lay his lyrics on top of. Iggy has upwards of 15 solo albums (not counting live albums and compilations) and this is right at the top of the list of ones to own.

The pair's time spent enjoying the Berlin nightlife is covered here with 'Nightclubbing' & 'Funtime', both of which are regulars on Iggy's setlist thesedays. 'China Girl' was written about a girl Iggy was with at the time, and proved a huge hit for Bowie a few years later. Iggy's version is the definitive though, with his rougher vocals giving the song a different edge. 'Baby' touches on what can almost be considered glam-rock, and Iggy pays tribute to his former band on 'Dum Dum Boys', while yearning for them when he needed them ("Now I'm looking for/The dum dum boys/Where are you now/When I need your noise"). It's Iggy at his most personal and it's simply brilliant. Iggy set out to prove that he was more than his reputation, that he had musical talent and wasn't a burnt out case. He succeeded. This is not only great music, but it gives you a good understanding of Iggy's mindset at the time.

It's no surprise that Iggy would eventually turn into Bowie. With the Idiot, he moved to Berlin and hooked up with the man. The backing band here is the same one that Bowie used for Low, and Bowie actually wrote the music for this. Naturally Iggy provided the wonderful lyrics, "Last night I was down in the lab/ With Dracula and his crew."
This album is really too wonderful to put into words. It's dark, scary, depressing, and confusing. I especially love the muddy sound. You know, Joy Division's Ian Curtis hung himself while listening to this.
Iggy's scream is gone (with the exception of the end of "China Girl") and replaced by this new baritone crooner (David Bowie's ... son). Stand out tracks include the quite unfun "Funtime", the frightening drugged up "Nightclubbing" and of course "China Girl". This really is fabulous and unique. If you enjoy Heroes and Low by Bowie, as well as Fun House by the Stooges get this and thank me later.

A few of the reviews express the oft-repeated belief that Iggy's China Girl on The Idiot is better than Bowie's version on Let's Dance. This reflects a false dichotomy--Iggy versus Bowie. As many of the reviewers have noted, The Idiot was as much (if not more) Bowie's project as Iggy's. Bowie resurrected Iggy from obscurity, wrote most of the music, played most of the instruments, and produced the album. Thus, China Girl is as much Bowie's song as Iggy's. The true dichotomy is 1977 Bowie versus 1983 Bowie. The version of China Girl on The Idiot reflects Bowie's experimental vision which bore fruit for him on the celebrated Berlin trilogy. The version on Let's Dance reflects Bowie's desire at that time (perhaps a misguided one) to tap into the mainstream of pop. Both versions were appropriate for their time and purpose. Keeping this context in perspective, I enjoy both versions, but given my affinity for Bowie's late 70's work over the Let's Dance era, I must agree that the earlier version is my favorite.

Iggy Pop-The Idiot ****

It's in there I can feel it! Aside from Studio B, The Idiot is Iggy Pop's most adventerious album, and I think It had to be. It was his first solo record, and first since the demise of one of the true great American bands, The Stooges. The album was produced by fellow trail-blazer and also major fan, the one and only David Bowie. Now many Iggy fans loath Bowie, while many Bowie fans loath Pop. I love both, stick them along side Lou Reed and to me you might as well have the holy trinity of alternative music, and originality. So yeah this really did have to be a different album for Iggy. He couldn't make Raw Power again, he couldn't be Iggy Stooge anymore, he had to find himself again. Always known for his eclectic taste in music ranging from John Coltrane to The Velvet Underground, from The Kinks to Muddy Waters Iggy was a true fan and loved it all and over the coarse of his career would incorporate it all into his music.

I feel two ways about this album. The first is that this is essentialy a David Bowie album released vicariously through the body of Iggy Pop, sounds crazy but listen. It was produced by him, he cowrote every song on the album with Iggy, and would later go on to cover the albums best song, 'China Girl.' The over all sound of the album is very simular to that of David Bowies albums of the time, Station To Station, Low, Heros, The Lodger, and even Scary Monsters later on. The guitar work, which by the way is amazing, is done by Carlos Amor who would play on Bowie's later records. The general feel of the album is Bowie. Not that it is bad because Bowie is by far one of my favorite artists of all time, he owns just about every other artist and style of music for that matter.

Then there is the part of me. This album was hard. When I first bought the album and put it on I thought, "what the heck?" But by the end of the album I got it, I fully understood. This really was Iggy, as much as it could be. He was looking for himself in a drugged out haze of heroin that he and Bowie were both sharing together but would soon kick in Berlin, Germany together. The guitar work on most of the album was not done by just Amor, but by Phil Palmer. The song 'China Girl' while not the big hit it would become for Bowie a few years later is better in it's simplicity found here on The Idiot. The lyrics are classic and among some of the very best poetry ever written. 'Sister Midnight' and 'Nightclubbing' are techno/dance/trance/house before those genres even came to form and were given titles, which is one reason why I love Iggy Pop so much because he is a trail-blazer. 'Fun Time' and Baby' sort of go hand in hand and couldn't be listened to or appreciated with out the other one, the sort of feed of each other. 'Dum Dum Boys' is just one of the very best songs that Iggy Pop ever recorded. A tribute to the ol' boys, you know The Stooges. He would later call one of his bands the Dum Dum Boys, but this song along with 'Tiny Girls' showed of what was to come from Pop on his next record, the legendary Lust For Life. 'Mass Production' closes the album with just that, mass production, and over the top recording done by the king of over the top, David Bowie. Not the strongest track on the album but a nice place to call it quits non-the less.

The Idiot is a classic album in Iggy Pop's cannon as well as David Bowies. This may not be his strongest or best but for fans it is surely essential.