No. 344: Iggy Pop - "The Idiot" (1977)

I've always been a huge David Bowie fan and somewhere along the way I read that he produced and co-wrote this album with Iggy Pop during his "Berlin period" in the late 1970's.
Iggy's days with The Stooges were over and he was recovering from drug addiction when Bowie took him under his wing and they both relocated to Berlin to dry out and experiment with electronic effects. This resulted in Iggy Pop's first post-Stooges solo album - a dark, introspective and sometimes funky set that seemed miles away from the Stooges unique brand of hard rock.
"Sister Midnight" and "China Girl" have Bowie's fingerprints all over them (Bowie re-recorded "China Girl" on his own in 1983 and had a monster hit) but it's Iggy's weary, deadpan vocal delivery which makes this album great. Tales of decadence and excess are found in "Nightclubbing" and "Funtime" - no doubt influenced by the seedy Berlin nightlife that Iggy and Bowie were immersed in - while "Mass Production" was an early blueprint for industrial rock.
Bonus fact #1: Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails used a bass drum sample from "Nightclubbing" as the drum track in his 1994 hit "Closer" off The Downward Spiral.
Bonus fact #2: When Joy Division front man Ian Curtis was found after hanging himself in 1980 this record was found still spinning on his turntable.