Recorded between the dissolution of the Stooges and the ignition of Iggy Pop‘s solo career, Kill City was at the time an anomaly in Iggy’s catalog, a collection of demos with an odd (for the Ig) sound that has been accused of being exploitative of its singer’s uneven mental state at the time. Given a spit-and-polish remix by co-author James Williamson, the album doesn’t seem nearly as grotesque in light of both the cleaned-up sound and the subsequent turns Pop’s career took a few years after its release. More melodic than Iggy’s catalog up to that point, the songs almost sound like an attempt at courting the mainstream rock audience, with bolder hooks and what would have been a slick, almost AOR feel had the budget been more than a few hundred dollars. In that sense, it presages Iggy’s later pop overtures like Brick By Brick and Blah Blah Blah, and arguably holds up better.
Of course, Iggy’s casual profanity and edge-of-sanity vocals would have kept this far from the radio in any era, even if tunes like “Consolation Prizes” and Williamson’s instrumental “Night Theme” sound like they could use further development. But the snarling title track, raging “I Got Nothin’” and desperately wild-eyed “Johanna” (with its over-the-top sax riffs) are classics for good reason, with lesser-celebrated tunes like “Beyond the Law,” “Lucky Monkeys” and “Sell Your Love” also more than worthy of renewed attention. In retrospect, the biggest curiosity is keyboardist Scott Thurston‘s “Master Charge,” a keys ‘n’ sax instrumental that requires neither headliner’s presence (though Williamson contributes some low-key, bizarrely-toned slide) and that sounds like ambitious porn theme music. That oddity aside, the freshly-scrubbed Kill City is ready to deservedly take its place alongside other minor classics in Iggy’s catalog.
