The Stooges "The Weirdness" (2007) [iTunes Link]

Their rudely urgent brand of earsplitting garage rock and bawdy English blues straddled the '60s into the '70s, but, sadly, the Stooges disintegrated in 1973, leaving their insurgent leader Iggy Pop to power through more than three decades of music alone. But a phone call to the surviving members and siblings Ron (guitar) and Scott Asheton (drums) to play on Pop's 2003 record Skull Ring led to the improbable: a full-on reunion of a band that served as a precursor to the so-called birth of punk rock that would follow three years after its breakup. Employing producer Steve Albini (Nirvana) to capture a similar bare minimum to their legendary three-album catalog--three power chords and an archaic rhythm section co-anchored by bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE)--these Stooges let Pop's in-your-face vocals capture the mundane: cruising for women, teenage autonomy, and finding love in a cash machine. But never fear that these late-middle-agers (Pop turns 60 a month after the album's release) feel the need to impede the volume. Songs such as "Trollin'," "Greedy Awful People," "She Took My Money," and "Mexican Guy" detonate like outtakes from 1970's Fun House. And with Iggy Pop showing no signs of slowing down and the Ashetons having nothing else to do, this band of Stooges stands a chance of outliving the first one.