The classic rock band Iggy Pop could never stand
Midway through Metallic KO, there’s a sudden crash of glass. In a festering Michigan Palace on the brink of fever point, a beer bottle has been hurled from the crowd. It explodes against the strings of Ron Asheton’s guitar, sending out a wail of fuzz and a howl of authenticity as Iggy Pop, the bloodied, shirtless frontman, almost inadvertently heralds perhaps the greatest live album of all time.
The latter half of the record is from February 1974, and it captures the final time The Stooges ever took to the stage at their punk pomp. The warts-and-all blitzkrieg it delivers captures exactly why the band were so vital and remain so revered. The album typified Iggy Pop’s hatred of polish and love of all things authentic.
Sadly, when the 1990s came around, the frontman felt like the rather more highfalutin ways of classic rock had persisted. When discussing the music scene in 1995 with Joshua Berger, he offered up this disparaging take: “The ‘music’ is mostly 60’s and 70’s rehash, especially, Led Zeppelin, who I never could stand in the first place. Also, ‘folk-rock’ is back as ‘alternative’, gimme a break.”
He continued his diatribe by adding: “The ‘bands’ dress this mess up in various ‘HIP’ clothes and ‘political’ postures to encode a ‘lock’ on social belonging which you can open by purchasing a combination of products, especially their own, none of them have fuck-all to say.” And he pinned this all on the pompous ways of poor old Robert Plant and his gang.
In truth, it’s not all that surprising that Mr Pop has never been enamoured with the stylings of Led Zeppelin. He has always favoured things on the raw side of things, once claiming that the gutsy analogue roar of The Stooges and other such bands was like “throwing an amp into the spirit of man.” And he figured the high production of Led Zeppelin was the antithesis of this.
He isn’t alone, either. Cream were against them, Kurt Cobain called them sexist, and in 1995, Pete Townshend was even more cutting than Pop. “I don’t like a single thing that they have done, I hate the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them,” he said.
Concluding: “I just never ever liked them. It’s a real problem to me cause as people I think they are really, really great guys. Just never liked the band. And I don’t know if I have a problem, block too, because they, well that became so much bigger than The Who in so many ways, in their chosen field, I’ve never liked them.”
