We Are Not Talking About Commercial Shit!

Album review

Few artists in the history of rock have seen demos and studio outtakes repackaged and re-released as many times as Iggy Pop has. However, one of the more interesting and strongest Iggy rarities collections turned out to be 1999's Nuggets, a double-disc set which compiled uncommon tracks from Iggy's Stooges days (circa the Raw Power era) up to the early '80s. It turns out, though, that several of these tracks appeared a few years earlier -- on the 1995 single-disc We Are Not Talking About Commercial Shit! As its title states, this is obviously not an Iggy best-of, as it focuses entirely on the latter-day selections from the aforementioned Nuggets. If it's uncommon Iggy you're after, then you've come to the right place, as evidenced by such interesting covers as "Batman Theme," "Family Affair," "You Really Got Me," "96 Tears," and one of Iggy's own Stooges classics, "No Fun," which is paired along with "I'm Waiting for My Man." But We Are Not Talking About Commercial Shit! is not all about covers, as several obscure/hard-to-find Iggy originals are included: "Hassels," "Flesh and Blood," the Iggy/Ivan Kral collaboration "Puppet World," and more. We Are Not Talking About Commercial Shit! is a more than adequate sampler of uncommon Iggy that focuses solely on his New Values through Zombie Birdhouse period, although Nuggets is a more thorough compilation of Iggy oddities (and contains all the tracks included here).
© Greg Prato /TiVo