*** Iggy Pop

AVENUE B

(Virgin)

Avenue B opens with a monologue in which our recently divorced, 50-year-old anti-hero sits alone in his study(!), surrounded by books instead of a band, contemplating his own mortality in simple, straightforward prose. "I wanted to find a balance between joy and dignity on my way out; above all I didn't want to take any more shit, not from anybody." From there we travel to the bedroom, where Iggy spars with his "Nazi Girlfriend" (whose "French is perfect, so's her butt") in hushed tones against a soft, drumless backdrop of languid guitar arpeggios and spare organ chords, and then outside to "Avenue B," where Pop picks up the pace a bit, strumming along on acoustic guitar to the mellow accompaniment of the jazz-rock trio Medeski Martin & Wood and hoping for a miracle of some sort.

This is easily the quietest, gentlest, most reflective album the Godfather of Punk's ever made -- more than half the tunes are strum-and-sing acoustic numbers, and there are two other dramatic readings like the opener. It's also one of Pop's best in the past decade, if only because his efforts to recapture the raw power of, well, Raw Power will always pale in comparison to the real thing. Which is not to say Iggy's completely lost his will to rock. Pop punctuates Avenue B with a couple of cranked-up workouts, including a back-to-the-garage cover of "Shakin' All Over." And "Corruption," with its thick, acid-metal guitars and pounding beat, gives Iggy a chance to prove that though he may not be the street-walking cheetah he once was, his heart's still full of napalm.

-- Matt Ashare