The Stooges

The Weirdness isn't a punk classic like Fun House, but let's be fair -- nothing the recently reunited Stooges can do will ever match their early work. This band does rock, however. Axeman Ron Asheton is a funky-ass rhythm freak. The dude's piercing feedback-screech on "Greedy Awful People" and "She Took My Money" should be studied by every retro-garage hack making the scene. As for the 59-year-old Iggy, well, Pop's monotone death-poetry works in spite of itself -- like it always has. Just check out these chestnuts: "My idea of fun is killing everyone," and "My dick is turning into a tree." Awesome.

The biggest problem here is Steve Albini's just-the-facts "production," an approach that works only when the band he's recording possesses an utterly unique live sound (In Utero-era Nirvana, Burning Witch). But at this stage in their careers, the Stooges can no longer deliver blitzed-out warfare like "I Got a Right." So in order to transform what's essentially a darn good collection of noisy bar-rock into something truly great, they should've picked a producer willing to trick out these recordings, like RTX's Jennifer Herrema or Andrew W.K., both of whom are avant cock-rock magicians. Still, The Weirdness shits all over 90 percent of all young-guy rock out there.