Lust for Life highlights like the title cut and “The Passenger” portray Pop as a punk survivor, battle-scarred but still searching. Producer David Bowie modernizes the dense psychedelic blare of the Stooges, substituting synth moans for guitar wails and keeping the jackhammer beat. 

 With the Stooges, Iggy Pop was a power-bent madman. But on his solo albums, he expands his persona. One of the best, The Idiot packs in crunching rockers and burnt-out torch songs, as well as a unique sensibility: brooding, sardonic, restless, outraged, funny and slightly bitter.  

  Reuniting with latter-day Stooges guitarist James Williamson, Iggy cooks up a lean, keyboard-enhanced hard-rock sound on New Values. If he doesn’t quite consummate the title track’s ambitious quest, Iggy does find strength in the old verities  

  The slick Bowie reunion (Blah Blah Blah) mysteriously fails to spark either participant’s batteries.  

 The numbing dinosaur-rock return (Instinct) stumbles into the tar pits, Iggy failing to break any new thematic ground.  

 Ever the phoenix, Iggy stumbles halfway back from artistic oblivion with the surprisingly consistent Brick by Brick. This self-consciously “mature” effort offends the faithful, but Iggy curls his lip and lets his delightfully twisted mind roam the contemporary media landscape. 

 By 1993, Pop had been lionized by Seattle bands such as Mudhoney. But his response to grunge was to have producer Malcolm Burn apply the same swampy, reverb-drenched glop that Daniel Lanois had dumped all over recent U2 and Neville Brothers records, which didn’t suit Iggy at all. 

 Naughty Little Doggy sounds as if it had been recorded in the same time it takes to listen to it and for about 25 bucks, besides. This was a step too far in the other direction, but the strutting, leering “Pussy Walk” may be his funniest tune ever.  

 And then came Avenue B, a baffling if often amusing excursion into crooning and spoken word, accompanied largely by organ trio Medeski, Martin & Wood.  

 If Avenue B seemed ill-advised, at least it wasn’t the same old scum rock retread that follow-up Beat ’Em Up was. 

 Skull Ring includes four tunes recorded with his old comrades, as well as cuts with Green Day, Sum 41, and Canadian porno-rap diva Peaches. Sadly, each of the latter is far more energetic than the reconstituted Stooges’ tracks.  

 A Million in Prizes is a two-disc anthology that cherry-picks from Iggy’s entire career, including his work with the Stooges.  

 Influenced by New Orleans swing, Preliminaires is a quieter album of café ballads and subdued electronics, with a few strong tracks (“I Want to Go to the Beach”) sprinkled in.