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May 2, 2013Ready to Die finds the quintet on Fat Possum, making them indie artists for the first time, and they give their new label the best produced, loudest, and slickest--without sacrificing any primal grit and drive--Stooges disc yet.
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Classic Rock MagazineJun 25, 2013Ready To Die suggests Iggy is anything but. [Jun 2013, p.90]
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Jun 4, 2013While fans can rest assured that rampage is still on the menu, be prepared to well up, too.
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Q MagazineMay 13, 2013They've bottled the lightning in an album of satirical wit, edgy intelligence and what fans crave most of all, raw power. [Jun 2013, p.105]
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May 8, 2013Ready to Die is a weirdly exhilarating gem, thanks to Iggy's fiery eloquence and the Stooges' still-raw power. Apparently rock'n'roll can be an old man's game after all.
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Apr 30, 2013On Ready to Die, Iggy & the Stooges sound hungry, ready not to expire but to prove something: that rock & roll is not dead and no one does it better.
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Apr 29, 2013Liberated from the weight of their history, they're just ready to rock while they still can, and that's why Ready to Die is, against all odds, a terrific Stooges album.
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Apr 29, 2013It's impressive that singing about the careless abandon of life seems as natural as ever for him, even as he hurtles towards 70.
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Apr 29, 2013The result wears the weight of its history lightly, with the exception of "The Departed", a solemn tribute to lost Stooges.
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Apr 22, 2013A time-bridging release that stands as an essential and timely reminder of just how rock ‘n’ roll ought to be played.
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Apr 29, 2013Ready to Die holds up as an unexpectedly sturdy late-career coda.
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Under The RadarJun 13, 2013Ready To Die is a beast and far outplays Pop's last Stooges reunion album, 2007's The Weirdness. [Jun-Jul 2013, p.93]
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May 28, 2013If one doesn't expect the last great Stooges album and sets aside the hype, Ready to Die is actually a pretty good, satisfying proto-punk rock album.
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May 2, 2013This new album of old ideas hits hardest at its softest, most melancholy moments.
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Apr 30, 2013The music is patently dirty and rough, but Pop’s subdued moments sound more solo career than Stooge.
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Apr 30, 2013Ready to Die is the reunion album (Iggy and) the Stooges deserve, washing away the bad taste of The Weirdness.
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Apr 30, 2013Ready to Die isn't the missing sequel to Raw Power, but it is a masterclass in writing a big, dumb punk album with occasional touches of emotional depth.
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Apr 29, 2013That fleeting escape aside [“Unfriendly World”], Ready to Die is another torrid tour de force from a band built for speed, not comfort.
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Apr 29, 2013It ain't no Raw Power. But once you get your head around the fact that it rightfully doesn't even attempt to imitate its antecedent, and really is more a belated sequel to Pop and Williamson's 1977 album Kill City, then this is, in places, a pretty damn good rock & roll record.
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Apr 26, 2013It is much stronger than their previous disappointing album The Weirdness (2007), and at times even recalls their creative heyday in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
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The WireApr 24, 2013Ready To Die, in essence, a solid hard rock album, with all the good and bad that implies. [May 2013, p.59]
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Apr 22, 2013[A] robust studio resurrection of his alliance with guitarist James Williamson.
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Apr 29, 2013For some reason, the Stooges decided to get moody on a trio of acoustic-based tracks, letting their singer respond by going into full on crooner mode. That sort of twaddle may fly on Pop's solo records, but when they go up against the slinky, deep pocket grooves of the rest of the album, the songs feel pale and hollow.
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Apr 29, 2013Despite being crass and ill-judged, RTD is actually fun in parts, retaining vestiges of the band's visceral youth, but leavened with the perspective more behoving of men of a certain life-stage.
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Apr 26, 2013Throughout, he's supported by Stooges guitar riffing of brutal directness and simplicity, occasionally fattened by the horns that lend an apt touch of soul sleaze to the latter track.
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Apr 26, 2013Only a couple of cumbersome yet oddly elegiac acoustic ballads push the Stooges outside of their comfort zone.
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Apr 25, 2013Ready to Die becomes really good when he stops trying.
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Apr 22, 2013Ready To Die was never going to match Raw Power. When you’re 65, rekindling youth’s righteous fury can sound like grouchiness or--worse--play-acting. But there are worthwhile moments, mostly when Williamson leaves space for Pop to express his vulnerability.
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Apr 29, 2013Iggy's delivery is too wry to exude rage, the songs rarely rise above a mid-tempo chug, and Mackay's jovial sax blurts are way more roadhouse than Funhouse.
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Apr 30, 2013With Ready To Die, Iggy And The Stooges have begun to spring back to life. Or at least shown signs of becoming convincingly zombified.
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Kerrang!Jun 3, 2013When it works, it's brilliantly dumb fun. But when it doesn't, you end up with stuff like DD's. [4 May 2013, p.53]
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MojoMay 20, 2013Nobody expected him, at 65, to be the street-walking cheetah of '73, rather just to raise his game, to try and bring that corrosive voice forward, commensurate with his age, the 2010s and, dammit, The Stooges. In short: he hasn't. [Jun 2013, p.87]
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MagnetMay 10, 2013It is, for the most part, a distant shadow of former glories. [No. 98, p.56]
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May 2, 2013It’s a sad affair best summed up by the title track.
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Apr 29, 2013While Iggy's feral mischievousness may still be intact, the Stooges no longer feel like a band capable of anything but embarrassing themselves.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 10
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Mixed: 2 out of 10
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Negative: 1 out of 10
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May 27, 2013