Because Ivlander asked for this, here it is.

Say what you will, but Iggy Pop is a crooner.  He's cut from the same cloth as his predeescessors - Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jim Morrison (who he has cited as one of his biggest influences).  As much as he is known for rolling in broken glass or smearing himself with peanut butter, his real power is comanding the mike, and getting you to listen.  Even if he is in the process of throwing that mike at your head.

Unfortunately, as is the case with Avenue B, Iggy falls back a little into the role of his predescessors, and litterally croons away most of the album.  Backed by Knitting Factory luminaries Medeski, Martin, and Wood on a few tracks, Pop takes his sound in a different direction a direction we don't really need to hear.

The thing with Iggy Pop is, lets face it, some times his lyrics can be just plain dumb.  Let's look at a classic like "1969".

"Last year I was 21, I didn't have a lot fun"

Kind of sophmore huh?  But the delivery and intensity of the song makes it

Unfortunately when you have a 50 year old Iggy doing a spoken word piece, "No Shit", and then leading into a Harry Chapin sounding track called "Nazi Girlfriend", in which he is Iggy in spirit, but he has no noise or bombast to hide behind.

"I wanna fuck her on the floor, among my books of ancient lore"

These are rhymes a grade schooler could make.  Unfortunately it's Iggy without the balls, so just sounding silly.

Iggy's cover of Johnny Kid and The Pirates "Shakin' All Over" is pretty straight forward, and Pop-esque, but no other tracks on the album really ever seem to capture that energy.

If your a completist or a covers junkie, you may want to search this one out in the cut out bin, but I would say it's only for the truest Iggy Pop fans, and even then it's a dud.

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GarageRock says:

As a die-hard Iggy fan, you'll get no argument from me, although I still think "Avenue B" is a better effort than "Brick By Brick" (another Don Was effort) even though the former is universally lauded as a "mature" effort by the man. Besides, since when are Iggy's lyrics NOT sophmoronic?! Sorry, but I never confused " I Wanna Be Your Dog" with a Leonard Cohen tune lol....it's part of what makes Iggy fun!

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Jonh Ingham says:

Avenue B sounds good when I'm in the garage doing stuff. And what's wrong with that Nazi Girlfriend lyric? It's the "ancient lore" bit that lifts it. There's also the one about the 'desert in her eyes'...Ig is always good for a lyrical fillip. I'm waiting for the album of Sinatra covers - he'd do that one great. :-_)

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contrabandwidth says:

Garage - I think only those of use who ar used to Iggy's rather loose editing for his lyrical style aren't thrown off by albums like Avenue B.  I rather enjoyed this side of Iggy when the album came out, but listening to it again, years later, it really didn't hold up for me.  Like most Iggy ventures, it's got it's moments, and it disapoints as well. 

Jonh - I certainly hope the Rod Stewart-esque jazz standards album isn't on it's way!  If it is I'll have to drive down to Miami Beach and punch him in the face!

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You may want to push play on the mixwit tape before starting this.  Tracks missing from the mixwit are Newark Wilder and Fillmore Jive.
I had been listening to Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain which I believe to be their finest album, and couldn't help but feel the bands exhaustion.  It's a rock n' roll wake of sorts.  A wake that had to this point been in progress for about 15 years.  It is road weary and ready to sleep in it's own bed after traversing the country, supporting other bands.  It's a road document.  I don't know what the book "Our Band Could Be Your Life" is about (well, that's a half truth, I do know it's about Rock n' Roll), but this could easily be the alternate title for this album.  This album is so beautifully textured with dissonance  - like a '57 Thunderbird with rust spots and mismatched tires.  This is broken down rock n' roll, rehabilitated, resuscitated for our own needs, and put back on the road as is.  We find beauty in the simple function of these things we put the work into to make them run, and we are sometimes just thankful that they are still running, and in that we see the magic.
Perhaps Crooked Rain, is just a perfect snapshot of it's time.  90's apathy brought on by the disappointment of idealism our youth once held.  Gen - X were labeled "slackers" by the boomers for failing to exhibit the traits that made them so special.  Or at least they always seemed happy to remind Xer's just how much "more involved they were at our age".  Never mind that many of them compromised their values and re-instituted the false values of suburban up-bringing that begat the Slacker.  This was a generation of Llyod Dobler's, not wanting to be like their parents, but at the same time exhibiting the same wariness toward authority and society that the system was "fucked".  Xer's were just more comfortable with it.
Some time after 2010, there will inevitably be a resurection of all things 90's.  Kids will flock to the kitsch aspects of Hammer pants and Cross Colors.  Commercials and movies will start plundering the vaults and the innevitable compilations of 90's music hits will be reissued.  Missing on these will be any refference to Pavements part in re-interpreting what the 90's was.  While the masses will flock around grunge style with a wink and a nod of knowing somethings dumb in hind sight, but loving it anyway, the sheer nineties-ness of a band like Pavement, or for that matter an album like Crooked Rain Crooked Rain will be under their noses, and ignored in favor of the flash. 
CR,CR represents everything that 80's post-punk college rock was building up, and pardon the pun, paving the way for the indie revolution.  The indie revolution of the 90's that we are just now seeing boom in the new distribution model the internet has made possible, was a road wearily traveled by bands like pavement.  Indie sensibility was not only about trying to right the wrongs that the boomers inflicted on the record industry, where they canabalized that which they loved.  Xer's were trying to resusitate that which they loved, a rock n' roll that had died, or at least been on life support since 79.  Where the boomers said "Fuck The System," shortly before joining it, the Xer's said "The systems fucked, I'll just do it myself!"
Perhaps the most defeating thing about a revolution, is that it's hard to anticipate, or sometimes even see the change taking place.  There's a whole lot of waiting.  And for those on the front lines of a revolution, the inspired, and the progressive, sometimes the wait can just kill you.  Or allow you to kill yourself. 
CR,CR on the surface isn't making any claims that the band Pavement are in anyway preaching, or the picture of change - but you can't help but think that they are. The album is a tour diary of sorts - a realization that Malkamus and the boys took off on this journey by their own accord, and things are different but they're still the same.  We're making music we want to hear, but people will still ask "Did you see the drummers hair?".  And by the end of the album, the chorus of "I need to sleep" wearily, yet somewhat angrily comes from the speaker.  You can almost hear what Malkamus is thinking "I've done what I could, I've worked hard at it, but you guys still aren't listening.  Make sure you wake me when the revolutions here."

Track listing for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain:

1. "Silence Kid" –
2. "Elevate Me Later" – 2:51
3. "Stop Breathin'" – 4:28
4. "Cut Your Hair" – 3:07
5. "Newark Wilder" – 3:53
6. "Unfair" – 2:33
7. "Gold Soundz" – 2:41
8. "5-4=Unity" – 2:09
9. "Range Life" – 4:54
10. "Heaven Is a Truck" – 2:30
11. "Hit the Plane Down" – 3:36 (Spiral Stairs)
12. "Fillmore Jive" – 6:38

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indiepixie says:

god i love the way you write; "This is broken down rock n' roll, rehabilitated, resuscitated for our own needs, and put back on the road as is."

Malkamus is thinking "I've done what I could, I've worked hard at it, but you guys still aren't listening.  Make sure you wake me when the revolutions here."

 

And for the record, since I feel the 90s was an era without much distinction or spirit, I'd be curious to see in 2010, a resurection of all things 90's.  Kids will flock to the kitsch aspects of Hammer pants and Cross Colors. And for the record I hope the flannel grunge movement never returns. save doc martens. i gotsta love my docs.

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contrabandwidth says:

somethings are timeless, like doc's.  I think the 90's distinction is it's indistiction (oh how post modern and very 90's at the same time).  It was sort of the result of pop cultural overload.  Kids growing up in the general discontent of the seventies left them discontent in the 90's. 

Buffalo Springfields line "There's something happening here, what it is aint exactly clear" comes to mind.  But it never is clear.  Now we are so quick to identify it, label it and put it in a museum, it doesn't get a chance to hatch from it's cocoon and fly.  Look at all the abels we have for sub genres of music: Math Rock, Nerd Core, etc.  I'm guilty of it myself (simply for the fact I like creating words like the above).

The 90's was about grasping at elements of inspiration and making something.  I don't know how you would define Pavements sound, but it's just so unique.  Maybe it's intentional and a calculated miscalculation, but that in itself is also what the 90's was about.  I think the post modern deconstruction of everything kinda collapsed in the 90's as a result of this circular logic.

 

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vannatta says:

Well said.  The Boomers not only kept their kids "children" longer than any other generation, they +still aren't stepping down from positions of power, putting off retirement indefinitely in order to retain the power (but the power of the old guard fades anyway) because as you said, the Xers said, "fuck it... the system is flawed... I'll do it myself..." and therein lies the rub.  The Boomer generation stuck us with the bill, and figured that we would fix it anyway... so here's to 2010 and beyond. (may it come sooner... at least the part about taking over...)

Cheers!

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