Iggy Pop vs. The Pixies: Why Some Reunions Work and Others Don’t

Question: why is Forbes turning into such a good source for music articles?  A big reason is Ruth Blatt, a “reformed academic” who has taken to writing think pieces like this.

“The only thing that I really have left to say,” said Iggy Pop, reclining on a couch wearing a black leather jacket over his bare torso, “is that the Stooges are a real group.”

What did Pop mean by “real group”? He meant that the Stooges make new music together. They don’t just perform songs, they create new ones. Although Iggy and the Stooges could have made a good living as their own cover band, they risked failure and ridicule by going into the studio and recording an album’s-worth of new material. They went the extra step of interacting with each other, sharing ideas, giving feedback, and uniting around a common vision.

Surprisingly, the resulting album, Ready to Die, which was released by Fat Possum Records in April, is quite good. How did a group of sexagenarians create a good punk rock album? According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, it was because the band was “liberated from the weight of their history.” Somehow, so many years later, Iggy and the Stooges were able to start over.

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