Beat ’Em Up

You can see a pattern emerging: Iggy puts out a considered, thoughtful piece of work (American Caesar, Avenue B), then follows it with a hunk of noisy, bloody afterbirth just so we don’t think he’s getting soft down there in the Miami heat.

And while any working Pop hypothesis will always be as full of holes as the singer’s jeans, Beat ’Em Up definitely belongs in the latter category alongside Naughty Little Doggie. It sounds like it was conceived, written and recorded betwixt sound-check and gig, with time to spare for dinner. Iggy’s latter day slash ‘n’ burn albums often suffer from the same syndrome that afflicts poets who do too many readings – you start writing for the stage instead of the page.

So, Beat ’Em Up is pneumatic and neurotic Mandrax metal loaded with gonzo Darwinian one-liners. It stinks, but often in a good way. It stinks like a pair of trainers after a five-mile run. It stinks of sweat and diesel and bodily secretions and monkey wipe.

Of the 15 tunes (plus obligatory secret track), there’s half a dozen keepers: ‘Mask’ is pumped full of middle-aged jism, and ‘It’s All Shit’ paints a world of excreta and offers love as a detergent. Elsewhere, ‘The Jerk’ is a humid metallic funk topped off by the usual Iggy jive while ‘Ugliness’ features repeated use of the most irritating instrument in the world – a car horn.

For all its lyrical soul, Beat ’Em Up is the kind of trumped-up lunkhead frat-rock Iggy could probably crank out every month given his regular road band and a block of studio time. That may be precisely the problem: the players are capable enough, but like Rollins, Iggy really needs a supporting cast who’ll push him, make him play above his game. Consequently, Beat ’Em Up is not true love, just 72 minutes worth of sport-fuck.