Line #70 Music/TheIdiot


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3	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iggy-pop-the-idiot_3527.jpg]]
4	[[caption-width-right:350:''"We're having fun."'']]
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6	''The Idiot'' is the debut studio album by Music/IggyPop, released in 1977.
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8	Made after the breakup of Music/TheStooges, the album was written and recorded with help from Music/DavidBowie. Recorded just before Bowie's album ''[[Music/LowDavidBowieAlbum Low]]'' but released two months after, ''The Idiot'' acts as a direct prototype for Bowie's [[ThematicSeries Berlin Trilogy]] (which makes up 1977's ''Low'' & ''[[Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum "Heroes"]]'' and 1979's ''Music/{{Lodger}}''), featuring a similar {{Krautrock}} and {{ambient}}-infused style of art rock that builds off Bowie's earlier avant-funk experiments on ''Music/StationToStation''. Bowie would co-write and co-produce two more of Pop's solo albums, ''Music/LustForLife'' later in 1977 and ''Blah-Blah-Blah'' in 1986.
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10	To promote ''The Idiot'', Bowie eschewed the possibility of a supporting tour for ''Low'' and instead acted as a sideman for Pop during his own tour. Two other stage players on the circuit, Music/ToddRundgren collaborators Tony Fox Sales and Hunt Sales (sons of Creator/{{Soupy\|Sales}}), would later become Bowie's bandmates in the HardRock {{supergroup}} Tin Machine just over a decade later.
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12	In the years since its release, the album would, alongside the Berlin Trilogy, be cited as a major influence on a number of PostPunk, SynthPop, {{industrial}}, and AlternativeRock musicians in the following decades. Music/DavidBowie would later rewrite "Sister Midnight" as "Red Money" for ''Lodger'', later covering "China Girl" on ''Music/LetsDance'' (1983).
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14	On a less pleasant note, the album is infamous for the fact that Music/JoyDivision frontman Ian Curtis listened to it shortly before killing himself in 1980; it was still spinning on his turntable when his body was found. A similar case would occur with Music/{{REM}}'s ''Music/AutomaticForThePeople'' and Music/{{Nirvana}} frontman Music/KurtCobain 14 years later. By coincidence, R.E.M. had previously covered "Funtime" as a BSide to their 1989 single [[Music/{{Green}} "Get Up"]].
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16	''The Idiot'' was supported by two singles: "Sister Midnight" and "China Girl".
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18	----
19	!! Tracklist:
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21	[[AC:Side One]]
22	# "Sister Midnight" (4:19)
23	# "Nightclubbing" (4:14)
24	# "Funtime" (2:54)
25	# "Baby" (3:24)
26	# "China Girl" (5:08)
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28	[[AC:Side Two]]
29	# "Dum Dum Boys" (7:12)
30	# "Tiny Girls" (2:59)
31	# "Mass Production" (8:24)
32
33	----
34	!! ''We learn tropes, brand new tropes, like the nuclear bomb...''
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36	* AlbumTitleDrop: "Sister Midnight"
37	--> ''I'm an idiot for you''
38	* AtomicHate: "Nightclubbing"
39	--> ''We learn dances, brand new dances, like the nuclear bomb''
40	* DancingIsSeriousBusiness: "Nightclubbing", a song about people who go out to night clubs and see it as a way of life.
41	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The album cover.
42	* DenOfIniquity: The drug world portrayed in the songs.
43	* DirtyOldMan: "Tiny Girls"
44	--> ''When you only want just a tiny girl\
45	And you hope she'll sing\
46	So you turn around\
47	Toward the tiny girls\
48	Who have got no tricks\
49	Who have got no past''
50	* DrugsAreBad: "Dum Dum Boys", written by Iggy to commemorate all the people he knew and are now lost because of fatal drug overdoses.
51	* EpicRocking: Three tracks ("China Girl", "Dum Dum Boys" and "Mass Production") are over five minutes.
52	* EvilColonialist: "China Girl" is an interesting case because Pop effectively admits to being one himself. The song was cowritten by Bowie, who detested racism and envisioned the song as a satire of how white society fetishizes Asian women. The line about "visions of swastikas in my head," for instance, relates to how the swastika is a good luck symbol in UsefulNotes/{{Hinduism}} and UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} that was appropriated and perverted by the Nazis.
53	--> ''I'd stumble into town\
54	Just like a sacred cow\
55	Visions of swastikas in my head\
56	And plans for everyone\
57	It's in the white of my eyes\
58	My little China girl\
59	You shouldn't mess with me\
60	I'll ruin everything you are\
61	I'll give you television\
62	I'll give you eyes of blue\
63	I'll give you men who want to rule the world''
64	* FaceOnTheCover: A photo of Iggy striking a pose in the nighttime snow.
65	* GrowingUpSucks: "Baby".
66	--> ''Baby, please stay young.''
67	* InTheStyleOf: Bowie advised Iggy Pop to sing "Funtime" like Creator/MaeWest.
68	* LyricalDissonance: The lyrics to "Funtime" are energetic-sounding on paper, describing a particularly joyous and all-including night out. The sound meanwhile is the exact opposite, being a frigid and bone-splitting {{industrial}} tune with droning, deadpan vocals.
69	* MistakenNationality: Music/IggyPop's infatuation for an Asian woman was the inspiration for "China Girl". Even though she was actually Vietnamese.
70	* OneWomanSong: "China Girl", based on Pop's brief infatuation for Kuelan Nguyen, who was French pop singer Jacques Higelin's partner at the time. Both Pop and Higelin were recording at the Château d'Hérouville in France when the song was written.
71	* OneWordTitle: "Nightclubbing", "Funtime", "Baby".
72	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "Dum Dum Boys" was written by Iggy in remembrance of his former Stooges bandmates who succumbed to their wild lifestyle.
73	* RepurposedPopSong: Bowie re-worked "Sister Midnight" with new lyrics and a new title as "Red Money" on his 1979 album ''Music/{{Lodger}}''. The song "China Girl" would later be re-recorded by Music/DavidBowie on his album ''Music/LetsDance'' (1983).
74	* SelfDeprecation: Despite its unflattering title it's still Iggy who we see on the album cover.
75	* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: "Funtime", "Nightclubbing", and "Dum Dum Boys" both romanticize as well as criticize the shallow lifestyle of people just partying on.
76	--> ''Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing\
77	We're walking through town\
78	Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing\
79	We walk like a ghost\
80	We learn dances brand new dances\
81	Like the nuclear bomb\
82	When we're nightclubbing\
83	Bright white clubbing\
84	Oh isn't it wild...?''
85	* ShoutOut:
86	** The title is a shout-out to the literary classic ''Literature/TheIdiot'' by Creator/FyodorDostoevsky.
87	** The album cover was inspired by German impressionist painter Erich Heckel's ''Roquairol''. Cover photographer Masayoshi Sukita would use the same painting as the basis for the ''[[Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum "Heroes"]]'' album art later that year.
88	** "Funtime" namedrops the title character of ''Literature/{{Dracula}}''.
89	* SpokenWordInMusic: "Dum Dum Boys" starts off with Iggy asking questions about people he knew, but all of them turn out to have either died from drug abuse or cleaned up their act.
90	* StudioChatter: Some faint chatter can be heard at the start of "Funtime".
91	* TooDumbToLive: "Dum Dum Boys" portrays the drug overdose-induced deaths of Iggy's peers as the product of their own idiocy.

Context Music / TheIdiot