The Stooges’ early albums sold poorly, just like the Velvet Underground’s. Over the years, Pop’s wildly varying solo outings have often taken expedient forms, conforming to certain expectations. The best way to read this perfectly serviceable, pacy rock record is as a salutary rant against a lifetime of dolts and philistines. In better contexts, his caustic delivery, underdog energy and Holden Caulfield-calibre disdain of phoneys are among the wonders of the natural world. To be clear: hating “dicks” and “douchebags”, as Pop does, is to be encouraged. “I’m in a frenzy, you fucking prick,” yells Pop on Frenzy, not the only time he lashes out at all-comers. The godfather of punk is very much in the building, sneering at careerist musicians on the overdriven Neo Punk, or knowledgably commiserating with a junkie on Strung Out Johnny. The mood is straightforward: lairy and loud, but slick and tuneful with it. It really says something when the ballads and spoken-word interludes are the tracks you want to go back to On guitar is producer Andrew Watt, who won a Grammy in 2021 for his work with artists such as Dua Lipa, Post Malone and Ozzy Osbourne. Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers play bass and drums respectively. You’d be hard-pressed to recognise that interesting guy on Every Loser, Pop’s 19th album – a record that dusts down his most basic persona for one more sneery flail in the company of celebrity fans. The film-maker Jim Jarmusch, who has directed Pop in a number of movies, attests to his interest in art and history. (Now 75, he retired from stage-diving some years back.) Having survived decades of decadence, the singer is long sober and maintains his wiry presence with qigong.
He’s a droll wit and mischievous raconteur, some distance from the “godfather of punk” cliche. He enthuses about Sons of Kemet and the Blessed Madonna. Nowadays, Pop is a gravelly, erudite voice on BBC 6 Music, as well versed in contemporary sounds as he is in genres far from his own recorded output. Others immortalise Iggy in the 70s alongside his buddies David Bowie and Lou Reed, a triad of exalted reprobates. His early records with the Stooges on the 1960s/70s cusp remain some of the most influential in the canon – documents of devil-may-care nihilism that provided a scuzzy counterweight to the era of peace and love. To most he remains the proto-punk showman who used to roll around in broken glass or crowd-surf covered in peanut butter. M ore than half a century into his career, Iggy Pop now takes many forms.
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