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The Stooges – The Weirdness

It seems appropriate to begin a review of the latest Stooges album with a quote from Lester Bangs, who arguably wrote with more intelligence and passion about The Stooges than anyone past or present. “… You’re goddamn right Iggy Stooge is a damn fool. He does a better job of making a fool of himself on stage and vinyl than almost any other performer I’ve seen. That is one of his genius’s central facets.”

The question arises then: is The Weirdness, the Stooges first album in over 30 years, foolish genius or simply foolish? As if knowing the question on the minds and tongues of fans and critics, Iggy himself gives you his answer in the opening track, “You can’t tell me this is not a smart thing to do…”

Before going any further in discussing The Weirdness, let’s get a couple things out of the way. Criticism of things such as production value and Iggy’s lyrics should be thrown out from the start. To dissect such aspects conveys a lack of understanding about what The Stooges are, and simultaneously what they are not. A few words on Iggy’s lyrics… There really is no difference between lyrics in the song Loose, “I stick it deep inside / cause I’m loose” 36 years ago and lyrics on a new song Mexican Guy, “… my girl ran off with a Mexican guy.” Both examples are silly and weird (let’s not forget the name of the album), and they’re just plain Iggy Stooge.

So now let us return to The Weirdness. With Steve Albini at the controls and Mike Watt (Minutemen/Firehose) filling the role on bass, held originally by the now deceased Dave Alexander, there’s good reason to be intrigued, but alas… held up to The Stooges three original albums (S/T, Funhouse and Raw Power) it doesn’t stand a chance – but who really expected it to? Yes, overall The Weirdness is mediocre, however there are some songs that standout. “Trollin” probably comes the closest to attaining the original energy and attitude of the band, while the title-track treads closer to a post-Stooges Iggy sound (think The Idiot), with deep crooning vocals and a mid-tempo, then finally “She Took My Money” is just classic Iggy snarl.

If I had to sum up the reason for the new album falling short of Stooges glory (ignoring the fact of the three decade time-lapse) it would be that the music lacks a qualitative adjective – hypnotic. The Stooges songs of yesteryear had a unique hypnosis to them that seemingly defies re-creation. From the pulsing jingle bells in “I Wanna Be Your Dog” to the hammering single piano-key rhythm on “Raw Power,” the seemingly simplistic songs suck you into a vortex of boredom, sex and drugs that you can’t escape, nor do you want to!

So The Weirdness is just that, weird, but sadly without the charm of the original weird Stooges albums. There may be more truth than irreverence in the albums closing when Iggy sings “I’m fried / I’m fried / I’m fried” over and over.

MP3: The Stooges – My Idea Of Fun