The Stooges' first three albums were a perfect triptych. Each record had its own peculiar atmosphere of dread, but when played back-to-back-to-back they form a complementary arc: black-cloud threat (1969's The Stooges) gives way to fiery holocaust (1970's Funhouse) and a post-apocalyptic zombie dance party (1973's Raw Power). Collectively, these records helped spawn every guitar-based subgenre you'll find in a reputable record store: glam, metal, punk, goth, hardcore, indie rock, shoegazer, stoner-rock and noise, and-- through sideman Steve Mackay's fearsome Funhouse sax work-- they even served as many rock fans' gateway to free jazz. There's really nothing more a rock band can or need do in its lifetime. Given that track record, the concept of a fourth Stooges album at this juncture is pretty much doomed from the start.
Sequestered in their home base of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the original Stooges operated in geographical isolation, equally reviled by the pop establishment and the prevailing hippie counterculture, and-- in sharp contrast to their MC5 soul brothers-- almost determinedly oblivious to the turbulent political climate of the time. What made the Stooges such an intimidating prospect was not their aggression so much as their willful indifference to the world around them.
When Iggy changed his surname from Stooge to Pop for Raw Power, there was no small amount of cheek involved in suggesting this self-mutilating drug sponge had aspirations to be a pop idol. But by this point, Iggy is pop: You've seen him in iMac and Motorola ads, on "Deep Space Nine" and in Snow Day, and singing with Sum 41. So by default, the strategy is now to subvert from within; if the old Stooges didn't give a shit about Vietnam, the reformed Stooges-- Iggy plus Ron and Scott Asheton, with Mike Watt replacing the late Dave Alexander on bass-- are at least paying attention to Iraq. But it's this very attempt to infuse the Stooges with some ripped-from-the-headlines currency that ultimately downgrades The Weirdness from being a passable aging-rocker reunion album into an atrocious one.
A big reason why the Stooges' discography has aged so much better than, say, Jefferson Airplane's, is that they avoided topicality and period detail, instead favoring a simple, provocative language-- little dolls with cigarettes and pretty faces going to hell-- that still simmers with deviant suggestion. The Weirdness, on the other hand, is practically begging to be dated, with Iggy dropping sore-thumb references to Dr. Phil, intifada ('cause it rhymes with "Madonna"), the Christian right, "a war with no reason," and The New York Times' Sunday Styles section, while celebrating his return ("rock critics won't like this at all"; "you can't tell me this is not a suave thing to do"; "the leaders of rock don't rock/ This bothers me quite a lot").
No one expects Iggy to act like the chest-slashing miscreant of old, but from a vocal-performance standpoint, there's little difference between this and, say, Naughty Little Doggie. Songs like "The End of Christianity", "She Took My Money", and "Trollin'" revert to the old "I Wanna Be Your Dog" trick of repeating the title until it becomes a chorus, but there's no underlying tension or menace to make them stick. He's never been the most subtle songwriter, but even Raw Power's "Penetration" sounds poetic next to "my dick is turning into a tree" (from "Trollin'"). And when Iggy sings "My idea of fun/ Is killing everyone," he sounds not like a 60-year old punk, but something way less flattering: a 16-year-old one.
As he recently explained to The New York Times, Iggy instructed Mike Watt to simplify his playing and find his "inner stupidity," so any hope that punk's most dexterous bassist would inspire a further exploration into Funhouse's funk/jazz extremities goes unfulfilled. Instead, the songs hew more closely to the straight-ahead slash 'n' bash of Raw Power (ironic, since Ron didn't even play guitar on that one) but with the restraint of older, wiser gentlemen who don't quite hate the world and themselves like they used to.
Though still capable of producing some sinister riffs ("My Idea of Fun", "Mexican Guy"), Ron's wah-wah workouts have lost some of their raygun charge, his fills sounding more typically blues-rocky. Even the return of Mackay fails to provide a corrupting influence, as he dutifully follows the band's lead (see: the Stonesy bar-band jam on "She Took My Money") where he once disrupted it. The only one who sounds like he's been waiting 34 years for this opportunity is drummer Scott-- thanks to Steve Albini's off-the-floor recording, his playing sounds more muscular and limber than the claustrophobic production and caveman beats on the early Stooges records would suggest.
But really, he's just trying his damnedest to kick some life into an album that hideously disgraces the band's original work. When the Stooges opened their South by Southwest set last weekend with a military-strike-precise string of five classics from The Stooges and Funhouse, the ensuing torrent of stage dives and flying beer cans offered convincing evidence they could still give us danger. But that the Stooges can ably relive past glories onstage only reinforces the sobering realization that one of rock'n'roll's most infallible discographies has now been saddled with an unwanted stepchild.
