Zombie Birdhouse

Iggy Pop | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 1, 1991)
• Original Release Date: 1991
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00000DHLD
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,618 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Run Like a Villain

2. The Villagers

3. Angry Hills

4. Life of Work

5. The Ballad of Cookie Mcbride

6. Ordinary Bummer

7. Eat or Be Eaten

8. Bulldozer

9. Platonic

10. The Horse Song

11. Watching the News

12. Street Crazies

13. Pain and Suffering [*]

Editorial Reviews

Special edition digitally remastered reissue of the godfather of punk's 1982 album which includes 2 CDs featuring 13 tracks on CD 1, including 1 bonus track, 'Pain & Suffering', and 18 tracks, 'The Villagers', 'Fall In Love With Me', 'Ordinary Bummer', 'T --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Iggy is a goof, September 30, 2000

By 

Chris - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zombie Birdhouse (Audio CD)

Only Iggy could try to write such silly lyrics and accompany them with mature 80's poppy rock music. Zombie Birdhouse is rather awkwardly arranged and produced. A lot of Iggy's material is like that, but it seems so much more apparent on this album. The album is good and I listen to it more than you might think. The first three songs are absolute classics and it's suprising that "The Horse Song" wasn't a hit. This album doesn't sound a lot like Iggy's style, but songs like "The Ballad of Cookie McBride" and "Eat or Be Eaten" show that he has just as much charisma as The Stooges did. Zombie Birdhouse is an odd album. Buy it...I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On my Top 10 all time list - any genre, September 11, 2003

By 

D. Sloan (PORTLAND, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zombie Birdhouse (Audio CD)

Well, to paraphrase Captain Beefheart, "Iggy was hungry but he sure weren't weird." I noticed in a couple of previous reviews that this is "bizarre" or "weird" music. Yes, it is experimental to a degree, but it's always in service to the emotion that Iggy is trying to get across.

For example, the slow-building, droning guitar/keyboard loop that slowly grows on Life Of Work implies exactly that - a droning, rhythmic life of work. "The people stare with blinking eyes, the workforce stands in readiness." The lyrical imagery is amazing on every track. I think of this as "thinking man's grunge" - because it's raw and personal but loud and rhythmic too. I'd bet anything that one Kurt Cobain spun this on his turntable a few times in his formative years!

Almost every song has a unique aural setting that fits it's message perfectly. Producer/guitar player Chris Stein (of Blondie!!) really goes wild in conjuring "jungle-like" sounds with strange metallic textures. This was one of his first projects after Blondie crashed and burned, and he was really eager to go in a new artistic direction. His imprint is all over this effort.

The drumming is also quite prominent throughout the album, with bongos (!) among other unusual percussion instruments (for his genre) that further the tribal aspect of the music.

Iggy really let's 'er rip with the tribal aspect of human nature in both his lyrics and vocal performance. It was a personally dark time for him. I saw him in late 1982, with about 49 other people, in Eugene, Oregon. At about 2:30 a.m., after looking generally [angry] and crazed (and flipping his mike stand hard into the audience a couple of times) he fired his soundman near the end of the show. Kicked him right off the stage! I think you can hear that anger, that exasperation, in this album.

When this first came out, it hit me on a very personal level. I had never heard music of such an intensely personal nature before. The closest anything has come since is probably mid-late 90's Radiohead. And people go crazy for them! Why not Iggy? Well, Radiohead is definitely more "mainstream" in several ways - sound, looks, actions - and I guess Iggy's just too much to take for most people. His singing isn't anywhere near pitch perfect, but again, it's calculated to be that way. He isn't doing anything by accident here, but the whole album has a really spontaneous feel that keeps it fresh over two decades later.

It's ironic that many Iggy fans put this near the bottom of their list but it's my #1 Pop favorite. If you haven't heard it, give it a try - but do it with an open mind (and preferably listen to it in a darkened room late at night for best effect).

Enjoy!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Weird but fun, July 24, 2003

By 

K. Suzuki "funkamonkey" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zombie Birdhouse (Bonus CD) (Dlx) (Audio CD)

I always liked Zombie Birdhouse. With it's flying saucer guitar on The Horse song and the LMAO lyrics of bulldozer it is just representative of what I like about Iggy. Off the wall and fun, with more than a tiny bit of darkness to it (street crazies, the villagers, etc). I would splurge and get this edition because you get a live concert cd recorded in Toronto in 1983. The negative of this is Iggy must have had a cold because his throat sounds messed up, the quality of the recording is rather bootleggish, but still after a few listens you get used to the negatives and get into it. So I would definitely count the additional cd as a pretty cool bonus.