Ever since I’ve been blogging here, I’ve lamented the fact that The Stooges were not in the Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame.  The Rolling Stones were the original bad boys of rock.  But, they did it in a typical PR kinda way.  It seemed contrived.  Then, along came Iggy and the Stooges.  They were bad.  Real bad.  There wasn’t much to like about them.  Their music was very basic.  It was recorded in a way that made it sound like someone literally sat a mic in front of the entire band.  Iggy was prone to cut himself on stage, not terribly appealing.  He was prone to make musical statements that didn’t really make a lot of sense.  Basically, everything about Iggy was chaos.  The staple that seemed to keep him from going completely over the edge were The Stooges.  There are several legacies left in the aftermath of The Stooges.  The most obvious being:

Although bands like Pearl Jam attributed Neil Young with being the godfather of grunge, they’re way off.  Iggy made being stupid cool. While other bands were becoming more and more studio oriented, The Stooges stripped it all back down again, paving the way for The Ramones and punk.

While other bands were pretending to be bad:

That’s not fake blood.  While others pretended to push sexuality to new levels:

Iggy did it on stage.

Social barriers?

That may be Iggy in white.

Contortionist?

Lounge lizard?

Bondage?

Glam?

Now, ya gotta keep in mind that Iggy did all this before the Beatles broke up.  Michael Jackson wasn’t even a teenager yet.   While major acts were polishing their images, Iggy did everything possible to destroy his.  It became very uncomfortable to watch.  Everything punk aspired to be, Iggy took it over the top while laying the groundwork.  Iggy went solo at some point.  He had some minor hits along the way.  He teamed with Kate Pierson to have his biggest hit in 1990.  The Stooges basically went nowhere and didn’t do much.  In 2003 Iggy re-joined them toured with them since.

Iggy was pretty emotional about finally getting in.  They had been passed over seven times while performers who had obviously less of an impact on rock got it.  For Iggy, it was vindication.  For guitarist and bassist Ron Asheton, it was meaningless.  He died earlier this year.

There are so many bands that performed for nothing more than to sell a few records, maybe score some babes, or even better, make lots of money.  Then there were true musicians and performers who felt music was something different, something special.  The Hall of Fame is for special performers.  They need to think long and hard about how they select their members.  Ron Asheton never had the limelight, never made a bunch of money, and could have scored chicks without all the aggravations and notoriety of performing with Iggy.  But, he seemed to know something special was happening.  He’ll never know that the rock world knew it was special too.