Who's the Main Man : Bowie, Iggy or Lou ?

obvious answer, but bowie in a blink.

V-2 Schneider.

I really like some of Iggy's stuff (Stooges and Bowie collaborations mostly) but for me it's clearly between Lou/Velvet and Bowie/all the people he worked with...
Very hard to decide atm.

Don't want to do it.

obvious answer, but bowie in a blink.

Don't forget it includes their bands/collaborators so Velvet Underground !

Probably Iggy, he causes the least indigestion (though I steer clear of a lot of his solo stuff, so maybe thats why)

Bowie never did a car insurance advert. (Or did he?)

I've tried and tried with the velvets but I don't think at this stage they'll ever click as an important band for me. I appreciate them rather than enjoy them.

Lou (3)
Iggy (4)
Bowie (5)

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k72/idol_pics/JMcelebs/79805957200780010PM.jpg

Bowie, no contest.

Bowie never did a car insurance advert. (Or did he?)

pretty sure he took over as the voice of chrchill the dog after vic reeves gave up the gig

One of the things they have in common for me is that I don't really care about their careers since the end of the 70s/early 80s (more than 30 years for all of them and Iggy's still going strong !).

I've tried and tried with the velvets but I don't think at this stage they'll ever click as an important band for me. I appreciate them rather than enjoy them.

oh ok, in that case, easy indeed !

who had the best post-80s career? (i'd go with bowie based on his stuff from 2000 to now alone, but i'm sure many lou reed fans would disagree)

Easy one for me. Lou by a country mile.

The other two are great but Lou is the greatest.

Lou for me too. I would probably have rather had a conversation with either of the other two, but as far as the work it's him.

I think although I like many more of Bowie songs, some of Lou's songs touch me more, in a deeper way (mostly with VU but not only).

Yeah, that exactly.

The head says Bowie, the heart says Lou.

and the one who rocks harder ?
between Lou and Iggy but I'd go with Iggy for "Search & Destroy" alone (although Lou rocked hard too) !

Rob Thomas by miles.

(xp) the easiest choice of all for that question, Iggy.

Bowie never did a car insurance advert. (Or did he?)

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, January 26, 2016 10:13 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He did a Pepsi ad in the 80s, and a couple of others since then.

But Lou did this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDLAM48TmJQ

All I really need of Bowie: Low, "Heroes", Stage, The Next Day, Blackstar.
All I really need of Reed: Metal Machine Music, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts.
All I really need of Iggy: The Stooges, Fun House, 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions, Raw Power, Lust for Life, The Idiot, TV Eye: 1977 Live, New Values, Soldier, Party, Blah-Blah-Blah, Instinct.

So...Bowie's the only one who's done anything I love in the last 30 years, but I still gotta vote for Iggy because Fun House might be the single greatest rock album ever, and seeing the Stooges (plus Mike Watt, but with Steve Mackay) in 2003 was genuinely life-changing.

There are no losers here

hang on to yourselves!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdjF-1zcK4s

well, if we're going to look for the most ridiculous/awful thing any of these guys has been involved in...

https://500daysasunder.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/screen-shot-2013-01-24-at-4-03-50-pm.png

B-b-but what about some of those latter day Lou harmony duets?

Oh yeah, there was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBd4SuDNsGQ

god that is incredible

love all these guys, there's no wrong answers, but off the cuff I'm inclined to say Lou>>Bowie>>Iggy, just cuz Lou was first and is arguably the more archetypal and emotionally engaging (and ultimately kind of tragic, I think) figure

like Bowie and Iggy both seem to have found some measure of peace, Lou seemed tortured and bitter and cranky to the end

Shakey otm

Despite all the Tai Chi master silkscreen.

yeah, lou was like the least chill zen-minded individual ever

god the iggy i have no use for i have no for to an extent that nothing in the lou or bowie catalogs can dream of approaching. that said when bowie passed i found myself listening to the idiot over and over more than any actual bowie albums. brain says lou, heart says iggy. voting lou, maybe if iggy had played guitar for the stooges...

really glad you guys *know* people just by following em in the media

xp

Lou seemed tortured and bitter and cranky to the end

Really?

otoh i was gonna say 'this is like modern lovers vs new romantics vs...' but i couldn't find an inheritor to the stooges that i felt comfortable actually comparing to the stooges

Lou for me, but I can understand arguments for all three.

really glad you guys *know* people just by following em in the media

xp

Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at right

best album from them : I might go with VU&Nico or VU for Lou, Stooges or Raw Power for Iggy and Ziggy or Station2Station for Bowie, I guess.
Lou wins.

really glad you guys *know* people just by following em in the media

true, we should all just pay attention to dennis perrin's twitter instead

I don't really care about Lou or Iggy

this thread makes me want to know more about Lou's output in the 80s.

I'll give a try at "Blue Mask" and "New York"...

The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, and New Sensations are wonderful records, superior to anything Bowie and Iggy released in that period.

I think what most impresses me about Fun House is that it covers all this ground -- obviously I can't know how "Down on the street" or "T.V. Eye" sounded in 1970, but they rock in a way that I feel okay describing as 'straightforward' -- whereas by the end of side B, The Stooges have brought us to the edge of sheer formless sonic chaos & left us squinting into the darkness after them -- spellbound by Iggy's charisma, the aforementioned swingin' basslines, the fiercely rudimentary drumming, we don't notice the change is upon us until it's too late.

I had originally described this pseudo-narrative progression as the album "making sense" when taken as a whole, but as I tried to elaborate on that notion, I realized that I mean something closer to the opposite: The album doesn't make any sense, at least none that I can express in words. But it produces effects, powerful effects, effects that I seek in vain from other rock music, finding only faint traces, reflections and echoes that point me right back to Fun House. Faced with this reality, I have to posit some higher, invisible metaphysical realm of "art", a plane of existence on which, thanks to some hidden numerological craziness, Fun House would, in fact, make sense; because my brain simply can't admit that, in a record whose ecstasy stirs me in the deepest regions of my soul, there might be nothing speaking through the music except brutal nihilism & meaningless contingency.

(btw the failed mysticism of my last post is in no way a repudiation of meticulousness, or an assertion that "beginner's luck" had anything to do with it -- rather, I'm denying that craftmanship in the recording process, or any other intentional factor, can sufficiently account for the powerful aura which eventually settled over the finished product)

The true answer is Jagger but yeah, he's a notch above. It's obviously Lou otherwise. Let's not get carried away with Bowie love. Nothing he did is in the same realm as the VU. Iggy is an afterthought, I'd go Rotten before Iggy.

And we have a new Wrongest Opinion champion for this thread. Congratulations.

Thanks! Who did I steal the title from?

Tuomas

But yeah, I stand behind it. What part is wrong? Fun House is great but I'm not sure if it's because of Iggy. Nevermind the Bollocks is godly because of Rotten no doubt. Bowie is impressive/interesting but not often truly great. Surely not on the level of songwriting that is Reed's VU run. It goes Sister Ray > Station to Station >>> Dirt

yeah disagree w/ everything in that post except iggy vs. rotten (i'll take metal box/second edition over anything iggy did after funhouse).

Sister Ray > Station to Station >>> Dirt
― simmel, Thursday, January 28, 2016 5:56 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post

Sister Ray is super overrated. I imagine many garage bands in the 60s were capable bashing out 30-minute drone jams. They just didn't get put to tape.

^^^

Thurston Moore has said in an interview or essay somewhere that he's more a Raw Power guy than a Funhouse guy. It was apparently the first Iggy he heard, being sold by the Mick Rock cover photo.

Hey, it's my old mate Thurston! RP was the first Stooges album I heard, in fact it was years before I heard Funhouse, by which time I'd already heard the first album and several Iggy solo albums, LOL the olden days.

Sister Ray is super overrated. I imagine many garage bands in the 60s were capable bashing out 30-minute drone jams. They just didn't get put to tape.

We have a possible new contender for wrongest statement of 2016. Like just anyone could pull off the sounds Reed and Cale are producing on this track!

Or Tucker. Or Morrison.

The VU would be my #1 contender for that "things you admire but don't like" thread, if I could say I admired them. The best I can offer is that I recognize and concede the breadth of their influence, while believing that literally everything that's come in their wake, down to the most half-assed Jesus & Mary Chain B-side, is better than their own work.

^^^newer contender for wrongest statement of 2016

http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/far-flung-correspondents/he-coulda-been-a-contender/on-the-waterfront-charley-head-rest.jpg

otm

Kind of my introduction to all three way back when...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPvWoEiaEqU

loved that doc, taped all 10 episodes and watched them over and over again. That one and the funk one were totally revelatory to me.

Voting for Bowie - I return to his music every 8-10 years and always discover something new. My VU/Lou Reed phase was kind of a one shot in college. I still haven't heard a lot of Iggy's solo albums.

Also, I've been thinking a best Bowie guitarist poll would be fun. Trying to think of them all: Ronson, Slick, Fripp, Alomar, Frampton, Gabrels, SRV, Belew, Nile Rogers, Bowie himself... who else?

Sorry - I meant to put this on the Bowie thread.

Wow, that "Soul Man" video with Lou/Sam Moore was something else. I turned it off when the old granny was singing with the black mic.

Bowie - Iggy --- Lou

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The capper is surely Reed’s audible contempt as he consigns the consensus world’s best rock and roll band to idiot fodder: “I never liked the Beatles. ... I thought they were garbage. If you say, ‘Who did you like?’ I liked nobody.”

Lou wins.

You should have quoted the paragraph above as well.

Saw this in the window of a store yesterday, almost bought it:
http://www.nostalgicimages.com/store/images/products/large_1097_406.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Balls.

Lol wat

If only Iggy was dead.

Bite yr tongue

ha ha well we can put this one to bed

Nonsense

i didn't vote because i couldn't decide

I'm is correct once again

Lol stupid phone lol

ILM is correct

You fools! Iggy is the main man.

Anyhoo poll reminded me of this recently released recording of Bowie doing impersonations of several musicians: Bolan, Lou and Iggy among them. His Lou and Iggy are spot on:

http://youtu.be/NrtXFTw2ico

69...

xxxposts

I didn't vote either !
I guess I should have voted Lou.
Maybe the poll was a bit biased because of the timing regarding Bowie but I suppose he has a broader appeal, anyway.

It does say http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/graphics/mainman125.gif

Now, if it was "The Man"...

Yeah this poll should have been done after Lou died.

Any artist who disrespects another artist by calling their music crap is a complete asshole, I picked up Lou Reed when I was a driving a cab in 1973, told him I was a big fan and he was an incredible nasty prick. Then gave a 10 cent tip, which I threw at him and hit him in the back of his head. he just kept walking away

Like · Reply · 13 · Yesterday at 08:37

LOL, Lou wins again.

ahah. classic !

Wait, where is that from?

Facebook.

Thought you told me you didn't do