In many ways, records such as Lust For Life or The Idiot function as lost Bowie albums, displaying the same musical palette and artistic temperament as Heroes or Low (also released in 1977) but released underneath Iggy Pop’s name.
Much like Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, or Prince and Morris Day, Iggy Pop served as the perfect conduit for Bowie’s musical output during his most productive periods. From the lyrics to the arrangement, Bowie’s musical fingerprints are all over Pop’s songs. Is it Iggy Pop singing Bowie songs? Or is it Bowie producing Iggy Pop songs? The Iggy Pop albums that credit Bowie are not only decidedly different from Pop’s other material, they’re decidedly Bowie. These records would become the first of many Bowie/Pop collaborations, fostering both set-list staples and B-side gems that blurred the line between producer and artist. The Berlin years would lead to Iggy Pop’s first solo records, 1977s The Idiot and Lust For Life, which were carefully sculpted by Bowie, his defacto producer and co-writer. Towards the end of 1976, the two creative soulmates would journey to West Berlin together, where both struggled to get clean while producing a prolific amount of music.
Iggy pop blah blah blah professional#
The friendship was basically that this guy salvaged me from certain professional and maybe personal annihilation – simple as that.” “And I see him as one of the only representatives of the enfranchised world that understands me or that I can stand.” Following Bowie’s death in 2016, Pop would comment on their relationship by saying, “He resurrected me. Probably an American beatnik who survived, Kerouac thirty years later,” Pop would say of Bowie in 1987. In 1976, after Pop checked himself into a UCLA mental hospital following the Stooges’ breakup, Bowie visited him and invited him on tour. While producing The Stooges Raw Power (1973), Bowie found a kindred spirit in lead singer, Iggy Pop.
Aspianist and collaborator Mike Garson told Bowie biographer Paul Trynka in Starman: The Definitive Biography: “I tell people Bowie is the best producer I ever worked with because he let me do my thing.” From Tony Visconti to Carlos Alomar to Robert Fripp to Trent Reznor to Arcade Fire, the Thin White Duke kept a diplomatic court throughout his reign. Every key stage of Bowie’s genre-bending career can be credited to a creative partnership that informed and enhanced his musical prowess: the glam-rock sleaze chiming out of Mick Ronson’s Les Paul during the Ziggy Stardust-era the esoteric, synthesized alchemy of Brian Eno during the Berlin period the pop sheen and clean-channel funk of Nile Rodgers during Bowie’s mid-eighties commercial tenure via Let’s Dance the ominous, dark-tinted jazz of Donny McCaslin’s ensemble that would close out Bowie’s discography on Black Star. Whether he was working with John Lennon on “Fame” or Queen on “Under Pressure” (or lending himself to unlikely Christmas duets with Bing Crosby or dancing around darkened alleyways with Mick Jagger), Bowie was well known for being collaborative with his own material, as well as working on others. The most seminal of Pop’s creative partners was David Bowie, no stranger to collaboration himself. From Josh Homme to Ryuichi Sakamoto, New Order to Ke$ha, Simple Minds to Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, Iggy Pop has continued to evolve and stay relevant within the zeitgeist throughout decades of musical alliances that have spawned some of his most revered music. The same year, Pop would work with Debbie Harry from Blondie on, “Well, Did You Evah?” for the AIDS benefit compilation Red Hot & Blue. In 1990, Pop teamed up with Kate Pierson from The B-52’s for his biggest commercial hit, “Candy,” the first and only time he would reach the Top 40 charts in the U.S. Throughout his illustrious career as rock ’n roll’s feral poster-boy, Pop has teamed up with a variety of bands and artists from across the musical spectrum, ranging from acts such as Green Day to Peaches. Iggy Pop has never been a stranger to collaboration.
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