So, this album is very very good. I hope I don’t need to tell you that. Iggy’s a wonderful lyricist and a fun singer, and Bowie’s arrangements and production are really killer, especially for how sparse it all is. There’s two big stinks people make about this album. One regards how much creative input Iggy had slash to what degree he functioned as a meat puppet for ole Davey’s amusement - personally, I’m of the opinion that Iggy doesn't get enough credit for the final product. The other is the fact that Ian Curtis listened to it before he killed himself. And, you know, I guess that’s interesting, but I don’t think it’s actually important or anything. I mean, nobody mentions all the times he listened to it while jerking off, which to me is indicative of far more serious psychological problems than merely committing suicide - but perhaps I digress.
Anyway, I have one of those pathetic things with this album where every track I relate intimately to my experiences in a way where it’s hard for me to think of the album on its own. Like, I basically think of this album as being about my life and nothing else. It’s sad, I know, and it doesn't even make sense, really. Like, I’ve never been nightclubbing (bright white clubbing) or gotten strung out on drugs, but when I hear the songs on this album I basically imagine them as bizarre extended metaphors for the things I actually have experienced–isolation, self-sabotage, cutting and anorexia, serving hamburgers… It really is sad. Is that what white girls go through when they listen to Taylor Swift? Just pure delusional “they’re just like me”? I know it’s wrong but I can’t help it. Iggy just has a way of doing that I guess. I don’t want to be this way, you know. It’s not even just The Idiot, either, it’s basically everything he's done–the worst one like that on his later albums is “Nazi Girlfriend,” though unfortunately that one has some actual biographical overlap.
The standout track to me is “Mass Production.” The hopelessness of it all–talking about the expendability of human life and the illusion of individuality, conveyed through grimy, industrial imagery–is probably Iggy at his peak in terms of poetics. The backing is really nice, too–these ugly synthesizers marching relentlessly forward like machines on the assembly line, droning on until their rhythm subsumes your identity. It’s cool. I used to drive my coworkers home around one in the morning–just six sweaty, grease-coated morons packed in a crappy sedan, everything aching, all fried after a twelve-hour shift with four rushes–I’d just just play this song, this album, mostly to their dismay, as the car rolled silently through empty streets. One of them asked me if one of the synth parts was a dog panting. You don’t forget things like that.
It could be worse, I guess. I mean, at least I don’t self-insert to Pinkerton - well, at least not every song on Pinkerton…