side 1
1 Run Like A Villain
2 The Villagers
3 Angry Hills
4 Life Of Work
5 The Ballad Of Cookie McBride
6 Ordinary Bummer

side 2
1 Eat Or Be Eaten
2 Bulldozer
3 Platonic
4 The Horse Song
5 Watching The News
6 Street Crazies

James Newell Osterberg — vocals
Chris Stein — producer, bass on half the songs
Clem Burke — drums
Rob DuPrey — guitars, keyboards & everything else

After making three post-Bowie records for Arista that got progressively stranger and less commercial (in the pursuit of trying to be MORE commercial), Iggy got dumped by the label and recorded this wonderfully bizarre LP for the short-lived Animal Records, run by Chris Stein from the group Blondie. Blondie’s drummer also plays on the record, but Ig’s main collaborator here is Rob DuPrey, formerly of “kitchy 70’s punk/new wave” band The Mumps (a band I’ve never heard, but after doing research for this review I think I gotta track them down.)

The sound here is very far removed from the classic Stooges material or his Bowie-produced comeback records like “Lust For Life”. The music is heavily influenced by “afro-beat” much like Talking Heads and Byrne/Eno records from the same era. The guitars and keyboards are usually heavily treated, to the point where some tracks sound quite a lot like Throbbing Gristle’s “20 Jazz Funk Greats”. Iggy actually CROONS many of the songs, he also scats, giggles in the middle of verses, does beat poet raps and generally everything except yowl and gnash like people expect him to. His lyrics and delivery make this probably the funniest Iggy record of all, and I believe he probably intended it that way (I mean how can anyone include interjections like “Holy Macaroni!” with a straight face?)

“Run Like A Villian” kicks the album off with an afrobeat groove, monotonic keyboard bass throb and squealing new-wavy guitars. Iggy’s first lines are “Big Dick is a thumb’s up guy / he shot a missile in the sky / it functioned just as advertised / until the fire made him cry / look into it later when the dust is clearing off the crater” — which is a good indication of the lyrical tone of the album: dumb puns and sex jokes mixed with seriously heavy topics like nuclear war.

“The Villagers” is one of the more melodic tunes, with Iggy crooning his heart out in a deep baritone register (who does he think he is, Barry White?) Ig also delivers a couple of spoken beatnik raps, which sound great in his unique gutter-trash accent: “Man is the village animal, united by the glue of our loathesome qualities!” and “In revolt against the other, but not the rules, in the space age the village idiot rules!”

“Angry Hills” is SOOO catchy it sounds like it could have been a hit single — of course if it had different lyrics and a singer who could stay in tune. This is the one you find yourself humming for days after a listen to this LP.

With “Life Of Work” things start to get weirder — a monotonous two note keyboard riff and grating mechanical percussion sounds warble around the mix doing an excellent job of painting an audio portrait of drudgery and boredom. Iggy asks: “what can you do with a life of work?” but doesn’t seem to have an answer to that question.

“Cookie McBride” is something like country music — at least it has pedal steel guitar over the new-wavy afrobeat stuff as Iggy drawls a tale of a hermit “heading for an unmarked grave.” Skinning and tanning hides also feature prominently. If you’ve seen Ig’s cameo in the Jim Jarmusch film “Dead Man” (he played an intinerant transvestite in the Old West) imagine that character singing and you’ve got a pretty good idea.

“Ordinary Bummer” is sort of a ballad I guess. Anyway … 

“Eat Or Be Eaten” is one of the rockingest tracks, driven by a scuzzed-out keyboard riff, Iggy nasally whining through the verses, bellowing out what passes for choruses: “it’s NERVY that’s what it is! Eat-or-be-eaten! Beat-or-be-beaten! Strike-or-be-stricken!” Maybe sort of a sequel to his earlier tune “(I’m Livin’ On) Dogfood.”

“Bulldozer” is one of my favorites on the album, driven by the heaviest “rock” arrangement on the LP. Iggy sings is an exaggerated bass rumble and the lyric seems made up on the spot: “Bulldozer … like a giant CLAM! … run that girl over! … get that poser! … B‑B-U-U-ULLLLDOZER!” (pause for some off-mic giggling and chatter) “son of a DAWG! .… General Dozer! … and should I add … a B‑B-B-U-U-ULLLLDOZER!!!” That’s pretty much the whole thing.

“Platonic” is something like a beatpoet ballad, the odd thing is it seems to be about the “Platonic ideal” as in Plato and geometric forms, not “platonic” as in non-sexual: “Strategic angles indirectly revealed / uniting human form and manufactured heels.”

“Horse Song” is another “ballad” with an interesting lyric; it’s NOT about heroin as you might expect, Iggy says “I feel like a horse” when he’s with his girl. She brushes his mane and tames him and he feels safe and warm, staring at her shoes. “I don’t wanna be a bad guy anymore!!” he wails. A totally bizarre metaphor that actually makes for the most heart-felt song on the album.

The last two songs are more very strange stuff:

“Watching The News” is pure Throbbing Gristle-style industrial noise-funk, with several tracks of Iggy vocals simultaneously crooning, chanting, yelling, telling jokes. “Who are these people?? Where’s the US Navy?!?!” — “She carries the televison on her back and I watch the tube” — “The president today announced that he’s pushing all the buttons in a giggling fit!!” — also something about “hamurger chainsaws.” He even sings a few bars of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” to the tune of “Angry Hills” from side 1. If I may steal a riff from Lester Bangs, this is “truly an example of brain-rot at it’s finest.”

“Street Crazies” is more noisy “industrial new-wave funk”, about “those who’ve been kicked ass-backward out of society!” (a major isssue in the US in the early 80’s, caused by the defunding of public mental health facilities combined with recession and 12% unemployment — not that Ig mentions any of that stuff of course.) He just wails like a Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer: “I’m huuuunnnnngggrrryyyy!!!!”

Conclusion: it’s simply Iggy’s most atypical, bizarre, funky and humorous solo album. In my humble opinion, also therefore the BEST of his solo albums.