The I-Invented-This-Stuff Poll

just bought "the idiot" again - still sounds great all these years later

Street Hassle for me, definitely. Wouldn't say I rank it up there with the very best of the Velvets, but it's something I continue to play almost as often. The ambitiously arty -- and stirring and beautiful -- title track almost seems like a deliberate one-up to CBGBers, a "just-TRY-pulling-something-like-this-off-Joey" kind of move. After that I rank them Iggy-Thunders-Johansen (the Johansen I know the least; probably haven't heard it in nearly 30 years).

I like how all four -- possible exception of Johansen -- can't escape their roots in glitter, yet at the same time they sound so weathered (which I think I hear moreso than "rueful," at least insofar as Reed and Iggy are concerned). They're like aging sleazemeisters.

I'd go Johnansen (the only one of these I actually own a copy of at the moment) > Reed > Iggy > Thunders. (I'm a fan of L.A.M.F. and Live At Max's, but Thunders' solo LPs have always pretty much bored me; should maybe revisit them someday, which doesn't mean I'll ever get around to it. Ditto The Idiot -- been kind of taken aback by how many fans it seems to have on ILM lately. Was always my least favorite late '70s Iggy.)

I really should get a copy of the Johansen. I have a feeling I'd like it a little more now. Only song I remember for sure is "Funky But Chic."

I was actually going to say, a few cuts from Lust for Life aside, The Idiot is where Iggy ceases entirely to be useful in any way to me. Something about the later seventies (and early '80s?) stuff that was celebrated at the time that irks me: "I'm Bored," "Pumpin' for Jill," et al. Not that I know the albums at all, mind you, and not that I'd argue too strenuously against someone saying something similar about The Idiot. I don't know -- for some reason, the caricature he became doesn't seem in full bloom yet on the Bowie-produced albums, maybe?

D-Jo pretty easy. I always wonder how he wasn't able to parlay how good he was then into some traction at the time.

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