The Stooges “The Weirdness”
The Beatles, who taught us everything, taught us how to break up. For one, you make it official. And also, you make it final. You go through the long and painful dissolution to dissuade yourself from ever trying it again. John, Paul, George and Ringo were very clear about it — when it’s over, it’s over.
For about twenty years, bands not named The Who abided by this rule. Reunions were deemed the ultimate falsehood, a betrayal of promise and legacy. We all secretly wished for our favorite bands to get back together -- maybe for an album, definitely for a final tour. But we also knew the rules and the risks. We dreamed about the “what ifs.” We wrote fan fiction about it. Beyond that, though, we kept our wild imaginations in check.
But then, things started to thaw. Memories faded. Led Zeppelin three quarters reunited in 1988. The Eagles -- the fucking Eagles -- reunited in 1994. They at least had the decency to name their smarm “The Hell Freezes Over” tour. I remember in 1992, when my favorite band, Television, reunited. It was a quiet enough occasion and their reputation was modest enough that barely anyone noticed. But I did. They had broken up in 1978 after a small, but legendary spark and flame out. It seemed impossible that they would ever reconstitute. And even if they wanted to or needed to, I wondered if they were allowed to. But, alas, they did. And nobody aside from their fervent, few fans seemed to care much. It made me wonder if this was the beginning of something and the end of something else or if it was just an anomaly.
Turns out that it was the beginning of something. Not Television, per se. But rather a collective rejection of The Beatles’ original legislation. By the end of the 1990s, it became evident. There was no such thing as a “breakup.” Nothing was forever. They all got back together. Every one of them. Well, maybe not The Smiths, but everyone else. Simon and Garfunkel, Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, The Police and Guns N’ Roses. They all reunited. Some for a night and others for much longer. Some did it because they wanted money and others because the needed it. Some did it because they missed the music and others because they had too much time on their hands. Whatever the reason, by the end of the last millennium, the old law had been updated. Nothing was final anymore.
For better or worse, most of the world accepted this amendment. Most of us were happy and the rest simply didn’t care one way or another. We shelled out a couple hundred bucks for the thrill of the concert and twenty dollars for the compact disc and eventually forgave and forgot about the lackluster performances. We were generally reasonable. I mean, even The Constitution has a bunch of amendments. But some of us -- mostly critics, wannabe critics and elitists that resemble me -- had a real problem with what was happening. It was fine for Crosby, Stills and Nash to cash in long after their expiration date. That was on brand. But once the promoters and festivals came for Punk and Indie royalty, it started to become a real, goddam problem.
The Velvet Underground, which was an unexpected, but limited, engagement, opened the doors to possibility. Then, in 1996, The Sex Pistols toured but recorded no new albums. As much as anything, it came off as a fitting prank. Less than a decade later, The New York Dolls and The Pixies reunited. The former were entirely forgiven, on account of the band’s earnestness, their tragic misfortune and the collective hopes of righting a wrong. The latter, however, were received with unprecedented vitriol. Although it was undeniable consumer demand that brought Frank, Kim, Joey and David back together, a backlash was waiting in the wings. Their new music inevitably underwhelmed. Pitchfork awarded the first Pixies reunion EP a 1.0 (out of ten). The follow up mustered a 2.0. By 2013, when Kim Deal left the band, Generation X’s internal “no” became an explicit “I told you so.”
Soon after The Pixies debacle, however, everyone gave up the ghost. Whatever high ideals we projected onto our sub-popular heroes were thrown out the window. Coachella offered too much money. In the age of streaming, albums barely existed anymore. Legacies were a relic of the twentieth century. LCD Soundsystem retired but nobody believed it for a minute. Within five years, they returned, possibly as great as ever. The Replacements -- or something resembling them -- returned. My Bloody Valentine -- a band that very few could prove existed in the first place -- resurfaced. Ten year album anniversaries became treated as generational events. No break-up was sacred. No break-up was even a break-up. There were hiatuses and sabbaticals. Nowadays, it’s fully expected that every band with a surviving fanbase will reunite and cash in, even if it’s only for one night.
In between The Pixies ignominious return and LCD Soundsystem’s unretirement, though, The Stooges returned. The actual Stooges, minus bassist Dave Alexander. Iggy. Ron and Scott Asheton on guitar and drums. Steve Mackay on sax. And Mike Watt, of The Minutemen, on bass. To some, the news was a massive surprise. But, in reality, there had been the quiet pitter patter building since the early 90s. The formative event was Iggy’s “Brick by Brick,” wherein he proved himself to be a sober ham, ready to work, and completely Alternative, but just popular enough. MTV started playing his videos. Spin and Rolling Stone started caring beyond their reviews sections. With Lollapalooza as the cultural milieu, Iggy Pop found himself near the center of the zeitgeist for the very first time.
This subtle groundswell fanned the flames towards 1996, when Iggy’s “Lust for Life” was used in “Trainspotting.” “Lust for Life” is equally Glam and Punk. It is also about as close as Iggy got to Pop. It is slightly dangerous but but also cheeky and kind of born again. It is, quite nearly, whatever listeners wanted it to be while still sounding like Iggy Pop. “Trainspotting” was the moment when all of those name checks, from The Sex Pistols to Nirvana, coalesced to form a new narrative. It was when Iggy went from being a critical darling and an important footnote in David Bowie’s story to being the official Godfather of Punk.
With all that tailwind, people started buying stock in Iggy Pop Enterprises again. There was yet another remixed and remastered version of “Raw Power” released in 1997. “The Complete Fun House Sessions” arrived in 1999, to the giddy delight of Rock scribes and completists. Simultaneously, J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr) and Mike Watt (The Minutemen) invited Ron Asheton to join them in a lead-heavy super-group called “The Fog.” A couple of years later, Iggy invited Ron and his brother, Scott, to play on his solo album, “Skull City.” And with that, a new generation found itself eight months pregnant with The Stooges rebirth.
As the due date approached, you could hear the hand wringing. It was not original fans who were concerned that The Stooges reunion would be a train wreck. First off, there were not very many actual fans of the band in the late 60s and early 70s. They were a cult band during their first run, and not an especially popular one. Further, Boomers had forsaken the idea of the “permanent break-up.” Perhaps, more than anything though, there was something uplifting about Iggy extending a hand to his childhood friends and former bandmates, who had gutted out decades of recovery, odd jobs and infrequent music-making. For the scant fifty and sixty-something fans out there, The Stooges reunion was a feel good story.
And it was not Millennials who were bracing themselves for the reunion. They were too young to remember and too meta to care. It was, of course, Generation X -- my generation -- the cynics who still had ideals. The thirty-somethings wedged between our elders who once believed in everything and our successors who knew that nothing really mattered. Generation X was fine with “Brick by Brick” and “Trainspotting.” We were happy to see Iggy shirtless and grinning. We were even probably OK with The Stooges cashing in at Coachella. But new music? That posed a threat to the legacy. That was an actual comeback. That was more than a reunion. And that would not fly for the writers and bloggers who were increasingly the voice of music criticism for the internet’s first generation.
It didn’t matter that the story was charitable and sentimental. It didn’t matter that Iggy, to say nothing of the Ashetons and Steve Mackay, was the opposite of a “sell-out.” It didn’t matter that Mike Watt had a PHD in indie credibility or that Steve Albini was engineering the album. From the moment that The Stooges announced “The Weirdness,” an album of new material to be released in 2007, ghosts of The Pixies resurfaced. The Pitchfork extended universe held their breath and passive-aggressively begged Iggy to preserve his legacy.
My first thought back then was: “What legacy?” The Stooges were not The Beatles or Led Zeppelin or, even, The Velvet Underground. They were much closer to The New York Dolls. They released only three studio album.s Had only marginally survived. Drugs loomed large. And their original fanbase was miniscule. I consider myself a massive fan of those original records, especially the first two. But even I can acknowledge that The Stooges were much more amazing than they were good.
Their debut is a dark, elemental buzz. At its best, it cuts The Doors to their studs and makes you want to close your eyes, clap along and wait out the high. But about half the album lands somewhere between unrealized and uninteresting. “Fun House,” in my mind, was their masterpiece, finding the intersection of nuclear power and deep groove. It’s first four tracks are flawless and hunt like AC/DC with Godzilla’s boner. The last three tracks, however, trade in the anvil for something more fried and experimental and less astounding.
Three years after “Fun House,” Iggy returned with Bowie at the helm, Ron Asheton on bass, James WIlliamson on guitar and Scott back on drums, for “Raw Power.” Although it is their most eclectic album, and possibly their most accessible one, it mostly benefits from the Bowie affiliation. “Raw Power” not only sounds like shit, but about half of it is plain boring. It has many moments where the amphetamine rattle catches a hook and Iggy can shake his ass. But it has more moments that sound lost and hungover. Whereas the self-titled album was a sustained, dark buzz and “Fun House” was a speedball, “Raw Power” can sound like the crud in the bowl after The Velvets and the original Stooges kicked it.
Yes — The Stooges had influence. And they had plenty of myth. But I wondered why so many people were concerned about their legacy. Can you destroy something that the band themselves worked so diligently to annihilate? Can you tear down something that was really only a few stories tall and covered in graffiti to begin with? Would anyone love those original albums less or more if a late addition underwhelmed? Three fifths of the band had hard, quiet, inglorious lives. They were approaching sixty years old. Why couldn’t we just let them make some music and little money while they still could? Was it really that big of a deal?
Turns out that, for a small but vocal minority, it was. When “The Weirdness” was released in early 2007, it was received with swift and violent rejection. One and two star reviews were the norm. Alt Press awarded it one half of a star. And Pitchfork, the beacon of modern music journalism, gave the album a 1.0 out of ten. Many writers derided the songs as hookless and slapdash. Others sneered at Iggy’s hour long erection and his artless politics. But, most of all, critics unfavorably compared the album to its predecessors and bemoaned the effect it would have on The Stooges enduring legacy.
The critical rancor had the whiff of an echo chamber to me. I wondered how awful it could possibly be, but I also decided to let the record breathe. I loved The Stooges but I didn’t need to hear the album immediately. I wanted to give the guys a fair listen, unencumbered of backlash and with the benefit of some oxygen and some age. Plus, 2007 gave us LCD Soundsystem’s “Sound of Silver” and The National’s “Boxer.” I had plenty to listen to.
It would be over a decade before I would return to “The Weirdness.” I’m glad I waited, because it is not a 1.0. Not even close. It is also not a very good album. It sounds like five guys in a room with a lot of history and some clear ideas but very few functional songs. Ron Asheton’s guitar is still a buzzsaw, but it’s a rusty one. It can probably cut down an aak but it would not be a clean cut. You can smell the burning metal. And Scott’s drumming is as heavy-handed as ever. It lacks dynamics, which is kind of the point, I guess. But it also lacks purpose and groove here. Without the drugs and the desperation, it’s just a guy pounding away. Steve Mackay’s sax, however, is modal and noisy — a welcome relief from the guitar and drum squalor. The horn injects an artiness that brings to mind “Fun House” as well as the weirdness of this album’s title.
To his credit (or not), Steve Albini captures a band that sounds very live and fun, if a little worse for wear. You hear the physical proximity and personal history of the men working itself out. While likely rewarding and possibly cathartic, however, nothing sounds resolved. No new ground is broken. And the willful regressiveness, while it has its aesthetic merit, is less interesting and far less pleasurable this time around.
On roughly half of the songs on “The Weirdness,” Iggy is singing from his loins. His undying, carnal desire, past middle age, is a leading actor. It doesn’t feel gauche or unnecessary. It feels true to form. In fact, it would be notable if it were absent. The problem is that the songs don’t hunt in the bottom the way they did on “Fun House.” As a result, the sex on “The Weirdness” is stuck in the throat. In fact, the two most overtly sexual songs -- “Trollin’” and “The End of Christianity” -- are two of the album’s lowlights. The former has a rushed and charmless chorus while the latter is just a one chord hammer down for three minutes, mercifully saved by the saxophone in the final outro. Iggy’s unmistakable sex appeal works best when it is in step with some sort of rhythm. And much of “The Weirdness” suffers in that department.
That being said, The Stooges remained generally consistent. The heavy buzz is still there. The sexual urges spilling over. And, of course, the nihilism. But whereas younger Iggy had no fun and nothing to do, this version has money, and fans and hangers on. Older Iggy’s self-hatred is a new breed of masochism. On “You Can’t Have Friends,” he’s an unknowable, unlovable fraud -- just like the rest of us. On “ATM,” “Greedy Awful People” and “She Took My Money,” he’s rich and dumb, just like his shitty, bougie neighbors. As familiar and genuinely hateful as these songs are, though, they also fail to elicit any sparks. You can hear Iggy trying to breathe life in, but nothing works. There’s too much water in the bong. Or a leak at the bottom. Or something.
“The Weirdness” does have its moments. The vitriol gets cartoonish and kind of sneering on “My Idea of Fun.” The guitars have teeth and the drums stay on time. Iggy sounds a little silly when he squeals that his idea of fun is killing everyone. He sounds inappropriately joyous but appropriately juvenile. For the first time on the album, The Stooges sound like a decent Punk Rock band. It’s not sophisticated or especially musical. But if you close your eyes and imagine teenagers playing it, you can almost hear Red Cross in LA in 1982 or Agnostic Front in New York in 1980. Whatever it is, it’s not a 1.0.
Occasionally, as on the album’s title track, Iggy pulls out his Berlin baritone. When he does this, the songs necessarily slow down a bit and search for a groove. That lower register also pairs well with Mackay’s sax. “The Weirdness,” the song, is an almost lovely ode to the modern malaise and the closest thing the record has to a thesis statement. It’s not trying to be relevant or true to a legacy. It just sounds like a guy, past his prime, confused and kind of stuck, trying to figure it out, with his equally confused buddies.
After the title track, The Stooges give us “Free and Freaky,” the album’s requisite hand-clapper. Here, Iggy celebrates the warts and dissonance of America’s ugliness, which he also believes to be the country’s greatness. He manages to almost rhyme Madonna, Benihana, Alabama and Dalai Lama while suggesting our weirdness and our freedom is one and the same. It’s silly and awkward and probably the most fun one hundred seconds on the album.
Finally, and right before they get to the forty minute mark, The Stooges close with “I’m Fried.” The singer has literally nothing left to say. It’s in conversation with the boy who had nowhere to go and nothing to lose in 1969. Decades later he sounds precisely like what sixty year old Iggy should sound like -- physically, mentally and pharmacologically burnt out. The song has only one idea. But it also has Ron Asheton’s best riff, some honking sax and a good, thuddy, Punk Rock bass line. It’s exhausting. And then it stops. And it’s over. It’s the end of the end for The Stooges.
In January of 2009, Ron Asheton died in the house that he had grown up in and still lived in. The very next year, The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2013, Iggy reunited with James Williamson, to make a final “Iggy and The Stooges” album, with Williamson filling Asheton’s seat. It was received slightly more generously and sounded a notch more realized than the previous reunion album. On the other hand, it was far less weird, horny and confused than any of its predecessors. In 2014, Scott Asheton died and in 2015 Steve Mackay died. None of them made it to seventy.
If we knew then what we know now, how would “The Weirdness” have been received? It was never a 1.0. Even then. As a feel good story that tried to do the right thing, it was nearly a 10.0. As a descendant of the band’s original spirit animal, it was still probably an 8.0 or 9.0. Musically, it was maybe a 4.0 or 5.0. But younger critics downgraded it to enhance the clickbait and to defend a legacy their version of the myth. But, now we know that it was the last time Iggy and the Asheton brothers got into a room together and recorded. Now we know that most of those guys wouldn’t be around a decade later. And now we know that those first three albums still sound exactly the same. So, I’m taking back those petty deductions. Maybe it’s only a 4.0 or 5.0 but I’m giving it a 7.5. There.