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The Idiot | 
| Artist: Iggy Pop
Label: Virgin
Category: Music
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £5.38
You Save: £3.61 (40%)
New (39) Used (3) from £3.99
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 3946
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.7 x 0.5
MPN: 86152
UPC: 077778615224
EAN: 0077778615224
ASIN: B000000WH7
Release Date: April 2, 1990
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 6 to 8 days
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| Tracks:
| • | Sister Midnight | | • | Nightclubbing | | • | Fun Time | | • | Baby | | • | China Girl | | • | Dum Dum Boys | | • | Tiny Girls | | • | Mass Production |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
The Idiot shows Iggy Pop's genius November 22, 2008
Written and recorded with friend David Bowie, Iggy Pop's debut solo album is a brilliant, but gloomy affair that differs markedly from his last (official) release - 1973's Raw Power. The crash, bang and wallop which characterised The Stooges exhilarating hard rock is displaced by a variety of effects and textures that include industrial noise (`Mass Production'), electronica (`Sister Midnight' and `Nightclubbing') and saxophone-driven, jazzy atmospherics (`Tiny Girls'). Also, Pop's brooding, nuanced vocal performances on the likes of `Baby' and `China Girl' owe as much to Frank Sinatra's sublime singing on In The Wee Small Hours and Only The Lonely as they do to his rock roots.
Apparently, Siouxsie Sioux once remarked of The Idiot that it was a "reaffirmation that our suspicions were true - the man was a genius and what a voice". Her conclusion is correct. That can be seen in the way that its songs have, over the years, been appropriated by a range of artists, to varying degrees of success: from Grace Jones' fairly faithful rendering of `Nightclubbing' (1981) to Boy George's mauling of `Funtime' (1995).
 "Oh Jimmy, just you shut your mouth!" December 10, 2007
Rating: 8/10
Best tracks: "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Funtime", "Baby".
Iggy Pop's solo debut is a far cry from the raucous, thrilling rock of his music with The Stooges; here, Germanic cabaret and electronica are the key influences, and the result is a unique, exciting and powerful work; this was one of four albums David Bowie played a role in (the other three are his own Low and "Heroes" and Pop's Lust for Life) and they all contributed to marking 1977 as Bowie's most creatively fruitful year. Yet despite Bowie's unmistakable contributions, this is very much Pop's show, and his reinvention as jaded, mechanised, resigned onlooker is one of the 1970's greatest turns of character, very much Bowie-esque, in fact. Brian Eno famously commented that The Idiot was like "having your head encased in concrete" , before adding that this was indeed meant as a compliment. In his own unusual way, Eno's utterly right. The full-on, abrasive, dense sound, at once loud and ugly, yet also melodic and beautiful, makes for a style that Pop nailed so perfectly here that it's probably unsurprising he didn't make another album like it. Even the album he made directly after it (in the same year) is relatively conventional, closer to a classic rock sound. The Idiot is to Iggy as Low is to Bowie; these are the descents, the confronting of the demons, while Lust for Life and "Heroes" are the ascents, the euphoria. It's also famously known as the last album Joy Division singer Ian Curtis listened to before committing suicide; this might suggest that it's an unremittingly bleak experience. It's definitely a foreboding trip, but it sometimes soars, though only on the relatively normal first side, which is almost perfect.
The repetitive opener "Sister Midnight", later reworked as "Red Money" on Bowie's Lodger, makes for a good start to the album, but The Idiot really takes off with "Nightclubbing", which is this album's signature tune, just as much as "Lust for Life" was on Pop's next album. Slightly drunken, woozy synthesisers, Pop's drowsy vocals, the discordant guitars that spiral through the red street lights conjure a sleazy world of moving from town to town, club to club, drink after drink...it's a gem. The ghoulish, campy "Funtime" was appropriately used in Bowie's 1983 vampire horror The Hunger, and this one's fantastic, with some chilling, thrilling vocal and synth touches. "Baby" is a delightfully dreamy, weird and offbeat, and "China Girl" is a stunner, memorably covered by Bowie on his Let's Dance album of 1983. Bowie's version is a classic pop rush, but the original is equally (okay, even more) fantastic for different reasons. While the Bowie version is a joy (despite the unchanged, dark lyrics), Pop's version is all cathartic, end-of-the-world emotion; by the end you'll be left utterly shaken. It's absolutely beautiful, and by far and away the best solo Iggy Pop song.
Side two is far more experimental and challenging; "Dum Dum Boys" is a lament to those of Pop's friends who have crashed, burned, survived or died over the last few years. Working from a constant, slurred beat, it'll either bore you for seven minutes flat or mesmerise you for the same amount of time. "Tiny Girls" has a beautifully melancholic saxophone refrain and works as a calming respite in-between the album's two more epic songs. "Mass Production" is as experimental as anything on Low or "Heroes"; like "Dum Dum Boys", there's a huge, repetitive beat that mimics the movement of machinery in the way that Kraftwerk's most famous works mimicked the speed of cars or the shuffle of trains. Personally, I prefer the first side to the second, but the likes of "Dum Dum Boys" and "Mass Production" are what gives this album its character, and are essential elements of what is one of the most striking albums of the 1970s.
Welcome back yMr Popyy(corrected version) January 26, 2005
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
When David Bowie left L.A. in 1976 along with his luggage he brought with him James Jewel Osterberg a.k.a. as Iggy Pop, who had just got out of hospital with Bowie's help, they both went to Berlin to try and clean up both their collective acts.After appearing on the seminal Bowie album "Low" (Iggy is singing in the backing chorus of the song "What in the World"). David and Iggy decided to work on what would be the first solo album for Iggy, to record the album "The Idiot" Bowie involved the same personal that made up the Low sessions that's Dennis Davis on drums with George Murray on bass Ricky Gardener on guitar and long standing Bowie sideman Carlos Alomar on rhythm guitar, and everything else from saxophone, guitar and strange devices, and backing vocals was David Bowie, all that plus the production of the album as well, mixing duties where by Bowies producer Tony Visconti. Bowie even took the black and white photograph that appears on the front cover. The album begins with a song that Bowie had performed on his 1976 "Station to Station" tour; in fact the music of the track "Sister Midnight" would later appear on the 1979 Bowie album "Lodger" as the song "Red Money" (same music but different lyrics), the second song of the album "Nightclubbing" was used by Grace Jones for her 1981 release of the same name, her version is very similar to Iggy's deadpan delivery but without the menace that the throbbing drums and bass create and her vocals are more like talking in pitch, than Iggy's growl set against guitar. The track "Fun time" has Bowie shouting the word fun in-between verses giving the song a chant like quality. This album is full of key moments for both artists' for Iggy "China Girl" which would later appear on the 1983 Bowie album "Lets Dance" album all be it with a different arrangement courtesy of that albums producer Nile Rodgers, the Bowie version would make more income for Iggy than all his released recorded work put together at that point of his career, on the original vinyl release that was the end of side 1. Side 2 had only 3 tracks starting with the sinister sounding "Dum Dum Boys" which in the world of Iggy sounds like blues that is even more desperate and bleak than normal. The key moment for Bowie is his outstanding saxophone playing on the song "Tiny Girls" which for me is one of his best performances on that instrument in his recorded work in my option, a real hair on the back of the neck tingling performance. The sad thing to report is that the pressing that Virgin America released in 1990 has not been re-mastered and so tracks like "Mass Production" which have quite introductions suffer from the curse of C.D., background hiss, so please somebody get the master tapes of this album and get them to "Abbey Road" studios at the double, an album of this significance deserves better than the present state of affairs...
The Greatest Downer; but a great recording. July 20, 2004
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I recall first hearing this in a "listening booth" in a record shop in Bristol. I was stunned by it, and it became an oft-played record during my spead-freek youth.
I haven't bought the CD version, as I cannot decide if I want to re-visit those days, in memory form. I cannot decide if this is the all-time, most depressing album, or Lou Reed's "Berlin."
It's strongest elements are on what was originally side two.
"Mass Production" is a monumental song.
For many years, I thought that "Low" the record found on the late Ian Curtis's turntable; but,no,it was this one.
It is amusing that "China Girl" (co-written by Bowie) was totally ruined by him. Iggy Pop's is the definitive version. I recall some totally misguided person slating the song on Radio 4; disparaging Bowie's version as a piece of sexist exoticism. It's plainly about heroin! The fact that Osterburg released the almost-as-good "Lust For Life " within the same year is quite an impressive achievement. He never topped this, with perhaps "American Caesar" being a close contender. But "The Idiot" is his EUROPEAN album. 1977 was a year that saw many classics released. This one ; "Marquee Moon"; "Low "; "Talking Heads 77." This one is timeless.
Iggy's Low February 4, 2004
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
This LP, produced and co-written by David Bowie, is Iggy's equivalent of Low. i think Brian Eno described it as like 'having your head encased in concrete'. he meant it as a compliment, and weirdly, he's right. It is an aloof, enigmatic record which is still full of wondeful, unforgettable songs like Sister Midnight and the original and best version of China Girl.
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