10 Greatest Rock Music Frontmen Of The 60s
4. Iggy Pop
Before Iggy hooked up with David Bowie and embraced world music and intellectualism, he was a writhing mass of malevolent proto-punk energy. As the frontman of The Stooges he was a willfully antagonistic shirtless menace, as likely to kick you in the head as give you a good night’s entertainment.
The Stooges only released one record in the ‘60s, but what a record it was. Their eponymous debut was one of music’s true game changers, taking elements of garage rock, British invasion, and virtuoso guitar music, and turning it into something that would later become punk. “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is perhaps the first encapsulation of Iggy’s key skill: he doesn’t sing many notes, but the notes he does sing are infused with more character than most vocalists could hope to achieve in a career.
On stage, Iggy was a marvel, frequently ending up bloodied and bruised, usually at his own hand, and lost somewhere in a baying crowd. It didn’t matter that he was never a technically brilliant singer - he had one of the hardest hitting bands in the game supporting him, and he’d never back down from anything.