Album review: Iggy & the Stooges Ready to Die (Fat Possum)

Iggy & the Stooges Ready to Die (Fat Possum)

Iggy's in a pretty bad mood throughout Ready to Die, the first time that he and The Stooges have shared co-billing since 1973's Raw Power.

“The man of the future's a bully and bruiser,” he grumbles over the congealed riffing of “Burn”, continuing to lament the dog-eat-dog nature of the modern world in tracks like “Unfriendly World” and “Beat That Guy”, and getting positively sociopathic with the inchoate anger of “Gun”. But then, he's always been a quintessentially American artist, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at either this simmering undertow of violence, or the breast fixation of “DD's”. Throughout, he's supported by Stooges guitar riffing of brutal directness and simplicity, occasionally fattened by the horns that lend an apt touch of soul sleaze to the latter track.

Download: Burn; DD's; The Departed