What the hell happened to Iggy Pop? Back in the day, the front man of The Stooges was a crucially rebellious punk icon, the kind of guy who made cutting yourself look cool – emo kids, take note – and put peers such as Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious to shame with his wild onstage antics, such as smearing peanut butter on himself and then stage-diving into crowds of leather-jacketed, spiky-haired toughs.

But more than 30 years later, when punk is a mere mainstream shadow of what it once was, Iggy Pop seems like a shadow, too. And, on The Stooges’ latest, The Weirdness, his cultural non-significance shows all too obviously.

Punk drew its origins in one main sphere of thought, epitomized in The Clash’s London Calling and Combat Rock and the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bullocks: Politics matter, politicians don’t. No one was free from mockery or criticism, not even the Queen of England or her “fascist regime.”

But what set The Stooges apart from the rest of the pack – and The Stooges came earlier than both the Sex Pistols and The Clash, effectively paving their ways – were their banal lyrics, swaggering youth, whip-fast guitar riffs and shouted vocals. Raw Power was the band’s tour de force, a shining, 32-minute-long example of minimalist musical genius that relied on Iggy’s charisma and songs such as “Search and Destroy” and “Gimme Danger” to inspire a cult-like, proto-punk following.

Yet everything that made The Stooges so great is significantly lacking on The Weirdness, the band’s first LP in 34 years. Iggy’s vocals are dull and monotone; the lyrics could be interesting, but he delivers them in a lackluster, lifeless way that begs to be ignored. On the first track, “Trollin’,” Iggy delivers an awkward ballad about what a “suave thing it is to do” to write a song about searching for easy girls. “I see your hair as energy/ My dick is turning into a tree,” Iggy growls – or is it rasps? Either way, the song starts the album on a subpar, somewhat sleazy route that it never shakes off.

And tracks such as “The End of Christianity” are also repetitive and drawn-out, a tedious departure from The Stooges’ normal one- to two-minute song lengths. Ridiculous and meaningless lines such as “I saw a goddess in a pizza joint/ She hit my weak spot at a crucial point/ When it’s a black girl you cannot resist/ It’s the end of Christianity” aren’t doing much to help Iggy’s case either.

But don’t worry, it gets worse, not only with the lyrics but also with the music. The lightning-quick, raging guitars that gave The Stooges their recognizable sound are gone, replaced by chuggingly predictable instrumentals that sound generic and common. Songs such as “Idea of Fun,” about how Iggy’s ideal pastime is “killing everyone,” start off like old Stooges, but then immediately veer back into a sadly safe and unimaginative area of rejected hard-rock riffs.

Sure, Iggy pontificates about his hatred of mankind, suggests that friendships are all fake dalliances, and claims mankind is full of “greedy, awful people.” But the thing is, these were all things Iggy was singing about more than 30 years ago, back when punk was defining the concept of angry, aimless youth. It’s harder to swallow these type of songs from the mouth of a 60-year-old man who has already defined his “Lust for Life.”

And that’s the main problem with The Weirdness: It’s simply not believable. In “Trollin’,” Iggy claims “rock critics wouldn’t like this at all.” Too bad that’s the only thing Iggy and the rest of The Stooges get right with this album.

Contact reporter Roxana Hadadi at roxanadbk@gmail.com.