Dienstag, 17. Nov 2009, 7:37
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/StoogesFunHouse.jpg
Rarely have I encountered an album whose artwork so perfectly describes what it sounds like. I'm going to say some words about it now, but it truly has to be heard to be believed.
Down On the Street opens with a sedate drumbeat, heavy blues-y guitar, a perfectly sleazy bassline and a series of deranged yelps. Iggy narrates in that trademark drawl no one else can come close to touching and the guitars keep pace dutifully. When it revs up for the second time (the first really being just a teaser), and lyrics descend into those same shrieks and grunts from Iggy sitting over the top of a pair of guitar solos constantly threatening to fall to pieces, that is when you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. It's a simple song, heavy and uncomplicated, just a taste of things to come.
Loose is essentially the same dark blues rock. The thing that really sticks out of this track for me is the transition from the nasal sneer of I took a riiiiide, with the pretty music to the lighter, almost gentle I'll stick it deep inside. I don't really like this song as much as Down on the Street: it's just as simple, but I get less energy from it. The bass riff is painfully evocative of Smoke in the Water (and you do not want to know how long it took me to remember the name of that song. And by remember, I mean ask the right person, who told me immediately and made me feel stupid), which is more than a little distracting. The best part is when the minimal control they have over the song erodes that little bit further and the guitars and Iggy go mental for some time.
I haven't paid much mind to the lyrics so far in this review, mostly because who the hell cares? The only reason for words in this kind of an environment is to make the mouth make sound, to fit in with all the other sounds and make sounds sound good. The cooler they sound the better, so writing them down here where you can't hear them is kind of pointless. For this album it tends to be a few phrases repeated over and over and over, as a rule. Here is an example from this song, just in case you are curious:
See that cat
Yeah I do mean you
See that cat
Yeah I do mean you
She got a TV eye on me
She got a TV eye
She got a TV eye on me, oh
See that cat
Down on her back
See that cat
Down on her back
She got a TV eye on me
She got a TV eye
She got a TV eye on me, oh
See that cat
et cetera.
The vocals are grating, nasal and harsh, and as usual the bass booms around it, and guitars ramble on around a fairly simple drumbeat for the majority of the song. When the song breaks out of that structure and they start to jam the song improves, Iggy springs his howling madness on the listener and then there is actually a part with horrific screaming, coughing and mumbling that serves some sort of purpose I expect.
Dirt rolls up slowly from a light slow beat and a loud inhalation, adding in some smooth rolling bass and some guitar shudderings and twangings and then Iggy comes in all sultry and slow Ooh, I been dirt … and I don't care, and as the guitars wail up all demented the seven minutes of this song each promise to be something incredible. Every part of this song works just perfectly to create that undertone of menace in a leisurely stroll through sordidville. It has a similar touch of the surreal to it as I Will Fall, but there is something far more menacing about this song that makes it so much more enthralling. It always ends before I think it will, and it's like just waking up. Just go and listen to it, it's not like I can describe it here anyway. Just keep an ear on that bass, it rules me.
This song almost has traces of pop in it, the way it almost has like a melody and everything. It's a more conventional kind of a song, and I mean that only in comparison with the rest of the songs on here, not in any wider sense. It is loud and wild and really quite good. Covered by the Damned as I Feel Alright, for a while I didn't realise who had covered whom (grammer). Then I remembered that the Stooges were absurdly ahead of their time, and that I was confusing the Damned with MC5, and I had to punch myself in the face a few times in punishment. Once that was done, I tried very hard to listen to this song without thinking the lyrics were wrong. I didn't altogether succeed at that. It is the first time we hear the legendary saxomophone on this album, too, where the song actually goes completely mental. The saxophone whinnies, Iggy audibly loses his mind and the song implodes nicely.
Listening to this song now, I wish the saxophone had showed itself even a little on side one, because here it just gives so much life to the jam. It stops being the raw proto-garage-punk-mess of side one and adds some kind of edge, funk or jazz or big band or just something that gives it a real unique sound. Even after seven minutes, there's no sign of any tiring on anyone's part even when it takes a turn for the slower. Least of all mine. Iggy's vocals are, as always, deranged, extreme, diverse and skilful, especially at just after five minutes. I'm surprised he can still talk at his age after all this shit, let alone sing.
Some screaming, some demented wordless yammering, some hammering drums, some atonal guitar, and a surprisingly sane saxophone part make up about the first lemme see … four and a half minutes of this song. The remaining thirty seconds is the guitar feedback fading out. Sooo, yeah. The messiest mess of the messiest messy messy messy messy AMAZINGLY GOOD mess. It doesn't need to make sense it just needs to exist. Nothing else would have done to close this monster out.
Strangely, on second listen this album actually did less for me overall. I was far less impressed by the first three tracks, and maybe appreciated the others a little more at most. I have yet to properly listen to it though. My good headphones broke, I am on a laptop, and I don't want to blast all the hearing out of my ears until I am at least fifty. The opportunity will come, I am sure, and when I can turn the volume up to 11 I expect I'll be hearing it in a whole new light.