Iggy released the ambitious album Free in 2019, and the rockin' Every Loser in 2023. He has continued to work with many different performers, some of them well-known and others on the cutting edge. He has contributed to recent tributes to Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithfull and The Velvet Underground.
Iggy's career reminds me of Nicolas Cage, who seems to alternate mainstream blockbuster movies with passion projects that allow him to express greater range. I guess the big films help to fund or compensate for the little ones.
I've divided Iggy's recent collaborations into two sets, subtitled Art and Commerce. The "Art" set features Iggy's deep baritone and French language fluency on collaborations with Catherine Graindorge, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Elvis Costello and others. "Commerce" has Iggy with Slash, Trevor Horn, The Lambrini Girls, The Crystal Method and more. Not to say that there aren't artistic ambitions on the "Commerce" set (or commercial appeal on the "Art" side). There are also a few older tracks that weren't part of previous Iggy blog comps. Happy 78th birthday to the streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm.
Iggy Pop Guest Spots: Art - https://pixeldrain.com/u/YWsHDNhQ
ReplyDeleteIggy Pop Guest Spots: Commerce - https://pixeldrain.com/u/NjQeGMEJ
Saw him in 1983 in Bellingham and Seattle. In Bellingham the stage was about waist high, you could reach out and touch him. $10.00 for each show. In Seattle a speaker wasn't guyyed properly, fell into the crowd, and the show was over after about 3 songs. I hope no one was hurt too badly.
ReplyDeleteBucephalus
In 1988, I was dating the woman who became my wife. We got tickets to see Iggy. He was touring the "Instinct" album, and he had Andy McCoy from Hanoi Rocks on guitar. The opening band had just released an album called "Nothing's Shocking"...
Deletelove this and him
ReplyDeleteThank you for both sets -- and for linking to the previous three, which I must have overlooked at the time.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! I checked the links today for the earlier sets. Lots of good music there, and some unexpected collaborators.
DeleteAbsolutely incredible, thank you! And big thanks for those earlier sets as well. Plenty for me to enjoy as I digest all these mixes.
ReplyDeleteGreat collection, Jon! IGGY is one of my favorites, and I'm a big fan of the INSTINCT album with Steve Jones helping out. But the first album I bought by THE IGGSTER was New Values (purchased at a flea market) which is a great place to start. There's something worthwhile on ANY of his albums.
ReplyDeleteI bought Soldier when it came out, and worked my way backward and forward from there. New Values is a definite favorite, maybe his best. You and I have discussed our mutual fondness for the Party album. Brick By Brick (produced by Don Was) is another fave. It's a shame that Iggy got mad at Steve New and erased Steve's guitar tracks from Soldier, but there are still some great songs there.
DeleteMy first Iggy hit was when TopPop showed Lust For Life with the (In)Famous clip. Few years later, when I had my first turntable, I bought Kill City, very cheap, without hearing it first. Just out of the blue, cause it was Iggy, the lust for life guy. Little did I know, and it blew me away. Some time later he brought Real Wild Child. Was he a pop musician now? Were The Stooges mere sins of youth? It was 1987 and I was into Heresy, Electro Hippies, Lärm and such.It took me a while to get my picture right again. Thanks
DeleteI remember watching that Top Pop episode with the whole family, we all thought something like OMG, that Iggy guy is totally bonkers...
DeleteHere it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4kl8LNm7hc
Love this Jonder, well done. Listening now to The Big Dictator, brilliant! I think he has done so many other collaborations that this series can be continued?
ReplyDeleteI think I have collected pretty much everything he's done as a guest on other artists' records:
Deletehttps://jonderblog.blogspot.com/2020/04/iggy-had-birthday.html
https://jonderblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/guest-spots-iggy-pop.html
Did anybody get the visual reference of "New Values" Iggy with an iron covering his face?
Holy crap, I missed those!
DeleteI saw Iggy Pop in 1987 open for the Pretenders and again in 1996 open for Pearl Jam and in the early 2000s at a small warm up gig in the US at a small club in PA before the Big Day Out Festival in Australia. I was lucky to get the set list of the stage.. Still have it.
ReplyDeleteBest regards
Zippy