Many of Iggy Pop’s core faithful seem to have abandoned him at this point, and you can’t really blame them after his series of increasingly disappointing ’90s albums. It’s especially unlikely that those fans will show much support for Beat ‘Em Up, which at times owes more to Slipknot and Korn than to the Stooges and MC5. (Doesn’t all of Korn and Slipknot’s ear-numbing guitar crunch date back to the Stooges and MC5 anyway?) Yet those who ignore this album are missing out. The set’s opener, the scathing anti-phoniness rant “Mask,” proves to be an apt introduction to an album that thoroughly rocks, largely due to the adrenaline rush provided by former Body Count bassist Lloyd “Mooseman” Roberts, who was killed in a drive-by shooting shortly after wrapping work on the album. The 54-year-old Pop is particularly animated on the adolescent-and-proud-of-it title track and the hilariously sarcastic “V.I.P.”—WO
