IGGY POP - NEW VALUES @ 45

 

Released in July of 1979, Iggy Pop's third solo studio LP, New Values, turns 45 years old this month. After a duo of relatively successful "come back" albums produced by David Bowie during his "Berlin" era in 1977 (The Idiot & Lust for Life), Iggy opted to work with former Stooges collaborator, James Williamson, as producer for New Values. Iggy had last worked with Williamson on the Kill City album, which was an attempt to revive the Stooges that kinda burned out before it could really catch fire, albeit it has since become a cult favourite in Pops catalogue. Though Williamson was previously known for his guitar work, that job would predominantly land in the hands of former Stooges piano player, Scott Thurston. Both Williamson and Thurston would contribute to the songwriting on the album. Their collective efforts would result in an album that won a lot of critical praise, but its commercial appeal lagged behind what Pop had achieved with his two Bowie produced prior LPs.

New Values was my gateway into the world of Iggy Pop, thanks to seeing the videos for I'm Bored and Five Foot One on The Midnight Special. Those were enough to get me to pick up the album, and once I did, I was further psyched by its ferocious title track, which remains one of my all time favourite Songs by Iggy. With its blistering guitar riff and ambivalent lyrics, it was perfectly apropos of the era's burgeoning "Gen X" sense of disconnection with the morals and priorities of a world that was about to dive head-first into a decade of "Reaganism" inspired greed and sociopathy.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE STOOGES, FUN HOUSE

Recorded 50 years ago (May, 1970), The Stooges sophomore LP was not my introduction to Iggy Pop, but it was the album that got me to turn my gaze to the past for challenging music and not just look forward. I'd read about Iggy and his antics in various music magazines like CREEM and Hit Parader a couple of years before I bought any of his records, but it was his 1979 appearance on The Midnight Special that got me ready to pull out my wallet in a record store. I think it was the episode hosted and curated by The Cars where they played two of his latest promo videos for his recently released New Values LP. Both Five Foot One and I'm Bored were aired that night and that was all I needed to become a fan of Mr. Pop.

At the time I bought New Values, my attention and interests were firmly forward facing in terms of looking for new music. I wasn't at all interested in what had come before. The zeitgeist of the times, with "punk" and "new wave", was to blast away the past and focus on the future. That said, when I kept reading references to The Stooges and how they were the "first punk band", my obsessive collector nature kicked in and I decided to roll back the clock 9 years and dip my toe in with The Stooges second album, Fun House. I decided to start there because I wasn't quite ready to abandon the current decade and step into the 1960s with their debut, though that would come to my collection soon enough.

Fun House appealed to me, at least superficially, thanks to the insane looking album cover. Iggy looked like he was on a slide, heading into the bowels of hell. The fiery color pallet and posterized graphic style gave the album a look of intensity and the contents didn't disappoint. Within its grooves was a kind of raw rock & roll which was nastier than any heavy metal, and sleazier than what I'd found to that point within the punk/new wave sphere. This was pretty scary music made by disreputable people who probably did questionable things in seedy places. Definitely not the kind of fellows the parents would invite over for dinner. It was stripped down and bare and edgy and way ahead of its time. It also took chances, like the manic finale freak-out of LA Blues, a song that felt like it left your turntable in ruins.

Once I heard this music, my mind was opened up to the reality that challenging music wasn't only happening in the present, but that there were precedents for it in the past and that it was worthwhile for me to turn at least some of my attention in that direction and understand some of the roots of the music with which I was obsessed. From this vantage point, bands like The Velvet Underground, CAN, Silver Apples and many others became fair game for exploration and helped expand my understanding of the way the past influenced the present. It helped me understand that these new bands I was falling in love with were standing atop some pretty impressive shoulders and those needed to be appreciated as well.