It has also been criticized as a poor depiction of Pop’s lengthy solo career, though it may be the reason he has one. Many have said that The Idiot is more respected than liked. (Bowie also reworked “Sister Midnight” under the name "Red Money" for himself as well.) And, rather infamously, The Idiot was the last record Ian Curtis played before he hung himself. “China Girl” became a huge hit for David Bowie years later on his best selling album. “Nightclubbing” famously lent its electronic drum programming to Nine Inch Nails’s “Closer” and was prominently featured in the film Trainspotting. While not a big seller, moments have been permanently engrained in the pop culture landscape. “Without the Dum Dum Boys, I can’t seem to speak the language,” Pop sang. “Dum Dum Boys” recounted Pop’s days in the Stooges and what a perfect union they had formed. The eight-plus minute closer “Mass Production” paid tribute to Detroit and the city’s influence on his career, over a repetitive, eerie bass line. “Tiny Girls,” the darkest song on the album, opened with Pop confessing, “Well the day begins, you don’t want to live,” and closed on one hell of a sax solo. Many of the songs utilized a more monotonous Pop including “Funtime,” contrasting the actual idea of a good time. On “China Girl” Pop howled, “It’s in the whiiiiiites of their eyes,” with a passion rarely heard on The Idiot. Bowie would then use this technique on his next album. “Nightclubbing” supposedly took Pop ten minutes to pen lyrically, as challenged by Bowie. The Idiot was filled with all sorts of unique sounding gems. Bowie wrote much of the music while Pop handled lyrics. The results were significant for both artists’ careers. Bowie and Pop tried to create a safe haven where they could both be productive and expunge their demons. The drugs were out of control plus the aforementioned Stooges split and mental hospital trip. Iggy Pop was in a dark place before these sessions with Bowie. However, The Idiot is largely credited as the beginning of Bowie’s Berlin phase. Although much of The Idiot was recorded prior to Low, it couldn’t look like Bowie had borrowed ideas from Pop. The Idiot wasn’t released until March of ’77, after the January release of Bowie’s Low. Bowie, looking for a reinvention himself, used Pop for experimentation and would later refer to Pop as his willing guinea pig. Recorded in 1976, Iggy Pop’s solo debut found the singer playing in David Bowie’s toy land. His group had disbanded and after a brief stint in a mental hospital, lead singer of Detroit punk rock group The Stooges teamed up with David Bowie in Europe to release his first solo album. Album DescriptionIt’s not most rock and roll stories. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. The Idiot introduced the world to a very different Iggy Pop, and if the results surprised anyone expecting a replay of the assault of Raw Power, it also made it clear that Iggy was older, wiser, and still had plenty to say it's a flawed but powerful and emotionally absorbing work. Iggy's new music was cerebral and inward-looking, where his early work had been a glorious call to the id, and Iggy was in more subdued form than with the Stooges, with his voice sinking into a world-weary baritone that was a decided contrast to the harsh, defiant cry heard on "Search and Destroy." Iggy was exploring new territory as a lyricist, and his songs on The Idiot are self-referential and poetic in a way that his work had rarely been in the past for the most part the results are impressive, especially "Dum Dum Boys," a paean to the glory days of his former band, and "Nightclubbing," a call to the joys of decadence. Musically, The Idiot is of a piece with the impressionistic music of Bowie's "Berlin Period" (such as Heroes and Low), with it's fragmented guitar figures, ominous basslines, and discordant, high-relief keyboard parts. Bowie co-wrote a batch of new songs with Iggy, put together a band, and produced The Idiot, which took Iggy in a new direction decidedly different from the guitar-fueled proto-punk of the Stooges. After a self-imposed stay in a mental hospital, a significantly more functional Iggy was desperate to prove he could hold down a career in music, and he was given another chance by his longtime ally, David Bowie. In 1976, the Stooges had been gone for two years, and Iggy Pop had developed a notorious reputation as one of rock & roll's most spectacular waste cases. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
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