Album Review: Iggy & The Stooges - Ready To Die

What happens when the world's forgotten boy becomes rock'n'roll's favourite granddad? The utterly confusing paradox that is Ready To Die; an album written by a man who remains so lustily attached to life, who, by all medical opinion, seems damn near impossible to kill.

Though Pop has remained a consummate performer, Ready To Die doesn't make you want to cry out 'No Iggy, don't do it!' in an effort to save him. DD's is an entirely forgettable ode to a hefty mammary, and Beat That Guy isn't much better. That's not to say that Ready To Die is entirely devoid of charm; the downtempo lament Unfriendly World is an unexpected but successful turn from the proto-punk legends, the title track's swagger is hard to deny, it's always great to hear Mike Watt on any record and the handclaps and saxophone of Sex And Money is a fun throwback to the band's golden years.

Could the album grow on you? Will it be like Fun House, where its beguiling charms reveal themselves slowly, almost quixotically? Probably to an extent, the rhythms having a tendency towards jarring alludes to the album's sleeper possibilities, but it's never going to be a classic. In Iggy Pop's freaky intonations on Loose, from the 1970 classic, the listener is guaranteed that the singer is as loose as the chorus suggests him to be, perhaps even more so. On Ready To Die's Job, when Pop sings of having a “job, but it don't pay shit” you feel like telling him that he should wipe away his tears with the excess of loose skin hanging from his torso and arms.