Iggy Pop

• Genre: Punk Pioneers
• Hometown: Detroit
• Iggy Pop Website

About

By the late '60s, while other bands were thinking of covert ways to make LSD references in their songs, Iggy & the Stooges were playing primal, stripped-down garage rock 'n' roll. If their brash, raw music alienated the flower-power set, their live performances went even further to separate them from the mainstream. Onstage misdeeds -- mutilating himself with broken bottles, throwing up on the audience, attacking crowd members -- made Iggy Pop a notoriously destructive figure. By the time the band broke up in 1974, the Stooges had already recorded three excellent albums and a slew of perfect punk classics ("1969," "I Wanna Be Your Dog," and "Search and Destroy," among others). Pop embarked on a solo career that has had its share of highs and lows, though it yielded the brilliant David Bowie-produced albums The Idiot and Lust for Life. And, thankfully, his onstage antics are now only slightly less destructive and obnoxious than 30 years ago.

- Kali Holloway