Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

A Million in Prizes: The Anthology

(Virgin)

In the early 1970s many people would've laughed in your face if you said Iggy Pop would still be on stage and releasing a greatest hits anthology in 2005. Pop was then the frontman of the most self-destructive band in rock history, the Stooges, and his penchant for hard drugs and self-mutilation made him a hot favourite for the next rock star to end up in a body bag after Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

But James Osterberg proved a survivor and has left rock music with one of its most influential and uncompromising legacies, excellently chronicled on A Million in Prizes: The Anthology. Most fans would say his work during the 70s - which makes up the first of this two-disc set - was by far his best, but the fire has never gone out in the heart of this most rock'n'roll of rock stars.

It's only the second attempt to chronicle the career of The Ig: the decade-old single-disc Nude & Rude tried to do this in just 17 tracks, but A Million in Prizes goes further by offering 38 tracks from almost four decades of recording, including live versions, non-album tracks and alternate takes.