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The Idiot is the debut solo album by American rock singer Iggy Pop. It was the first of two LPs released in 1977 which Pop wrote and recorded in collaboration with David Bowie. Drawing on the electronic sounds of German groups such as Kraftwerk, The Idiot is a departure from the hard rock of Pop's former band the Stooges, and has been compared to Bowie's contemporaneous "Berlin Trilogy" of albums in its treated instrument sounds and introspective atmosphere. Sessions for the album were begun prior to the recording of Bowie's Low (1977), and The Idiot has thus been called the unofficial beginning of Bowie's Berlin period.

The album is regarded by critics as one of Pop's best works, but is not generally considered representative of his output. Its title was inspired by Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot, three of the participants in the recording—Bowie, Pop and Tony Visconti—being familiar with the book. The album has been characterized as a major influence on subsequent post-punk, industrial, and gothic artists.

The album's opening track, "Sister Midnight", was written by Bowie, Pop and guitarist Carlos Alomar, and performed live on the Station to Station tour in early 1976. In July that year, following the end of the tour, Bowie and Pop holed up in Château d'Hérouville, the same locale where Bowie recorded Pin Ups (1973) and would soon record much of Low, and began putting together the rest of the songs that later became The Idiot. At the Château they were augmented by Laurent Thibault on bass and Michel Santangeli on drums, who were required, with minimal guidance, to add to rough music tracks already taped by Bowie, their first takes often becoming part of the final mix.

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