KNOCKIN' 'EM DOWN IN THE CITY:
IGGY POP--THE ARISTA YEARS

BMG has resurrected its Buddha Records catalog, and what a treasure trove it is...you're looking at some great Captain Beefheart releases, several prime Birthday Party releases, the very grooviest of the 5th Dimension's catalog, Hall & Oates' silver album and X-Static plus Hall's Robert Fripp-produced Sacred Songs (an underrated album if ever there was one and part of Fripp's Trilogy that included the second Peter Gabriel solo album and his own Exposure--but that's another article), Willie Nelson, Harry Nilsson, some of Lou Reed's Arista releases, Rollins Band, and the three albums released on Arista by Iggy Pop. Let me tell you, a lot of folks think of Iggy's best post-Stooges years as those that produced The Idiot and Lust For Life as well as the live and underrated TV Eye. Well, I don't happen to agree with that. Sure, the Berlin/Bowie years were fertile ones, but Bowie dicked around too much with the sound of Ig's albums at the time, with the result that they lack the edge that always makes Pop what he is at his best. Notice how Bowie later cleaned up "China Girl" and turned it into a mega-international hit record. But Iggy's version, which is vocally superior, is hamstringed by plinking bells in the background and a generally murky sound. On tracks like The Idiot's "Dum Dum Boys" or the incredible "Nightclubbing" this works well, but Iggy never gets the chance to break out and be the rock and roll animal we all know him to be.

Iggy was pretty much down for the count at the time Arista signed him. When former Columbia stalwart Clive Davis found that Iggy had been signed to his fledgling label (remember, Columbia lost megabucks financing the recording, production, and re-production of the Stooges' Raw Power) he wouldn't even commit to releasing the albums in the U.S. But Iggy, working with former Stooges guitarist James Williamson, talented guitar player and keyboardist Scott Thurston, bassist Jackie Clark (formerly with Ike and Tina Turner), and drummer Klaus Kruger (an original member of Tangerine Dream who Iggy was friends with from Berlin) honed a series of songs he'd been working on into one of his all-time best releases, New Values.

Though the sound of New Values is more polished and toned down than the Stooges, it provides a rock and roll context that was totally lacking from the Berlin Iggy stuff. "What must I do to take a holiday/Show me a bill that they can make me pay" Iggy snorts at the opening of "Tell Me a Story", and you know the champ is back in the ring. "New Values" continues with a guitar riff and vocal-through-a-train-loudspeaker final vocal verse that reappeared on The Pretenders' first album in "The Phone Call". Some of the angular rhythms of punk are here, too, putting the Rolling Stones' "Shattered" to shame. Yep, this is pretty great stuff that no one had any expectation of Iggy pulling off back then. Both "Girls" and "I'm Bored" maintain a sense of humor that had never been present in Iggy's work before. Two ballads, "Don't Look Down" and "The Endless Sea" are beautiful, the latter maintaining some of the hypnotic energy of some of the Stooges' work with infinitely more control. "Five Foot One", an anthem of sorts, with its chant of "I wish life could be/Swedish magazines" is one of Iggy's all-time best songs.

"I'm the chairman of the bored" Iggy sings in his best FM radio announcer voice, and you have to laugh. New Values was a hit in the UK, as was the single, "I'm Bored", which Iggy performed on the Old Grey Whistle Test. Some radio stations (remember when there were some independents out there?) like WBCN in Boston started playing the album as an import. Once import sales were proving the album had an audience, Der Clive finally relented and released New Values in the U.S.a full six months after its British release. It went to #180 on the Billboard album chart, and soon it was available in cutout bins everywhere. But it clearly announced, to anyone who cared to listen, that Iggy was back in the land of the living.

Iggy's next outing, Soldier, featured an incredible band comprised of the Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock, Barry Andrews (formerly of XTC and later of Shriekback), and Ivan Kral, who had played with the original Patti Smith Group. Again, the material was top notch, and this time the performances had a harder edge with less finesse."Loco Mosquito" announced his intentions, and "Knockin' 'Em Down (In the City)" was like an outtake from the Stooges or his later work with James Williamson. "Dog Food" was pretty much a poke at punk ("I'm hangin' round that same old scene/My girlfriend Betsy she's just fourteen/There's nothing better for me to do/I'm living on dog food!"), which Iggy was supposed to be the godfather of. There were the diametrically opposed "I Need More" and "I'm a Conservative", both of which displayed again Iggy's newfound wicked sense of humor, and "Ambition" in which he assumes the point of view of a golddigging female. Truly an excellent album and a worthy followup to New Values. Again it met with relative indifference, no one apparently caring that much that Iggy was now a viable recording artist who had conquered the worst of his demons.

Party was Pop's last recording for Arista, and it didn't get a U.S. release at all. It is not as strong as the first two Arista albums if you are looking for a more raw Iggy--it sounds like a major attempt at getting radio airplay and, perhaps, a U.S. release of the album--but the songs are well written once again and there are some great moments. I saw Iggy live on tour after this album had been released in Europe. He barely performed anything off of it (I remember him introducing "Pumpin' For Jill" by saying his record company wouldn't be bothering to release the album it was from in the U.S.), which could mean that he viewed the album as a blowoff in order to get out of his Arista contract, or it could mean that he didn't want to promote an album that the record company was burying. In any case, this disc is worth having as part of the Arista trilogy. "Rock and Roll Party" is hilarious, and "Houston Is Hot Tonight" and "Pleasure" are major rockers. "Eggs On a Plate" is weird--it might have been great had it been done by the bands on New Values or Soldier, but here it sounds tinny and more comic than punky. But Pop really shone on the New Wave dance hit "Bang Bang", a great song that Bowie later covered on Never Let Me Down. It doesn't get the sharp production that could have made it a big, international hit, but that's part of the story of Iggy.

Anyway, after Party Iggy was at a low point again, without a label. He recorded Zombie Birdhouse in 1982 for Chris Stein's label, with Stein producing, and the results were predictably uneven. It wasn't until 1986 when Iggy, now signed to A&M Records, got back into the studio with David Bowie at the helm to produce an album that provided him with a great production and sound to go with his first rate writing, resulting in Blah Blah Blah. Still, the Arista years gave us an Iggy like we'd never seen before, and I love Buddha for releasing these three albums with bonus tracks.

--Marshall Bowden--