Zombie Birdhouse is the sixth solo studio album by American rock singer Iggy Pop. It was released in September 1982 by record label Animal.
Recording
Zombie Birdhouse was recorded on 16-track in June 1982 at Blank Tape Studios in New York City.
Chris Stein of Blondie produced the album.
Musical style
Charlotte Robinson of
PopMatters writes that "
Zombie Birdhouse ... has reached near-legendary status for its oddity", and that it is "full of droning synthesizers, Afro-style beats and pseudo-poetic, free-associative lyrics". She also wrote that the album "marked the end of an intriguing and experimental if erratic period of Pop's career."
Jeffrey Ramos of
Minor Clash Publications called it Pop's final new wave-era album and "one of Pop's most obscure and experimental releases that was decades ahead of its time. Filled with a strong
punk rock ethos, as Pop rambles through poetic verse over introspective and experimental beats."
According to writer Ross Horton, the album exhibits "a kind of greasy, sweaty, sleazy rock 'n' roll fitted with a sharp
electronic music edge," with sporadic musical comparisons to Suicide, Throbbing Gristle and
Talking Heads.
Release
The album was released in September 1982 by Stein's record label Animal Records.
In 1991 the album was remastered by Mike Reese and included one bonus track, "Pain and Suffering", from the original Blank Tape Studio sessions. The track was used in the 1983 film Rock & Rule.
In 2003 the remaster was reissued as a double disc which included a concert recording from 28 October 1982 at the Masonic Temple Theater in Toronto, during Iggy's 1982 Breaking Point tour.
Reception
Zombie Birdhouse has received a mixed response from critics. Parke Puterbaugh of
Rolling Stone called the album "a brainy, well-plotted collection with more depth than could have been expected from the author of 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'."
of
The Village Voice, naming it Iggy's most experimental album to date, praised "music-meister"
Rob Duprey's interesting stylistic continuity, but panned Pop's "slogans, social theory, in-jokes, bad poetry, and vocal dramaturgy."
Sandy Robertson of
Sounds felt although the album was "hardly challenging like early Pop overdosed-and-on-his-knees binges," Chris Stein courageously provides little of his familiar style; "instead it's a bespectacled text."
In his retrospective review, Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote "sadly, Iggy himself didn't rise especially well to the occasion here; his lyrics are often a bizarre mélange of free-association without any clear focus, and one senses that Stein was a bit too awed by working with his hero to have the nerve to tell him when his vocals were wandering off-pitch (or out of tune altogether). ... ultimately, this album's a failure, but it's certainly one of the most interesting and ambitious failures of Iggy's career".
Track listing
Personnel
Technical
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Joe Arlotta – session engineer
-
Butch Jones – mixing engineer
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Esther Friedman – cover photography
External links
