It's a fat, satisfying slab of Iggy punk-rock steak. Exactly what we ordered.
Ready to Die isn't the missing sequel to Raw Power, but it is a masterclass in writing a big, dumb punk album with occasional touches of emotional depth.
On the evidence of Ready To Die, the rest of The Stooges are not only surviving but thriving, still making music that sounds urgent and demands attention.
The Stooges still sound thrillingly vital, no small feat for a bunch of hardened rock vets jockeying for position against scores of up and comers roughly a third their age.
Ready to Die is the reunion album (Iggy and) the Stooges deserve, washing away the bad taste of The Weirdness.
Forty years removed from the kamikaze death-trip fantasies of Raw Power, Ready to Die is the sound of Iggy admitting, “I’m too old for this shit.” And he’s come armed with not one, but three acoustic ballads to prove it
With Ready To Die, Iggy And The Stooges have begun to spring back to life. Or at least shown signs of becoming convincingly zombified.
Easily an improvement from The Weirdness, but yet still comes across as The Stooges being a shell of their former self, with an overall safe sound, but each member does their part well enough for some songs to be entertaining but by 2013 there was more interesting sounds going on.
Track Review
Burn 6.5/10
Sex and Money 7.5/10.
Job 6/10
Gun 7/10
Unfriendly World 4.5/10
Ready to Die 6/10
Dd's 5.5/10
Dirty Deal 5/10
Beat That Guy 4.5/10
The Departed 4/10
Dying Breed 5/10
Average: 5.6/10
Burn - 3/5
Sex and Money - 2/5
Job - 2/5
Gun - 2/5
Unfriendly World - 3/5
Ready to Die - 0/5 ☢
DD's - 1/5
Dirty Deal - 1/5
Beat That Guy - 3/5
The Departed - 3/5
Dying Breed - 2/5
Very weird decision by The Stooges to release a 5th album after not releasing a 4th album (which, I emphasize, does not exist, even if it does)!
Oh well. This is what I consider to be their comeback record. It doesn't reach the sheer influential heights the band reached with their incredible trio of albums, but the energy here is still good enough. Some neat variety, and the lyricism is at best decent, sometimes (very) cheesy. It's fine and fun.
This is supremely better than the record that ... read more
1 | Burn 3:37 | 60 |
2 | Sex and Money 3:18 | 40 |
3 | Job 3:05 | 40 |
4 | Gun 3:07 | 44 |
5 | Unfriendly World 3:46 | 50 |
6 | Ready to Die 3:06 | 22 |
7 | DD's 3:12 | 29 |
8 | Dirty Deal 3:42 | 33 |
9 | Beat That Guy 3:15 | 56 |
10 | The Departed 4:36 | 56 |