— Tom Hibbert
David Bowie, Sparks and, now, Iggy Pop: we've been encountering our fair share of critical favourites as of late. Well, at least to some extent. Bowie always had a on/off relationship with the press and his occasional fallow periods would be duly knocked by the music mags, even if each new post-Tin Machine release would inevitably be hailed as his "return to form". Sparks, as I have already gone into, have only recently been darlings of the hacks, their penchant for changing up their sound being viewed with suspicion by some who didn't understand what they were up to. Still, there's no denying that both Bowie and the Maels have have "enjoyed" favourable reviews of late, with the former's death only solidifying the immortality of his music in the eyes of critics.
Iggy Pop seems to have always been a favourite of journos, even at times when very few other people were listening at all. Lester Bangs was one of the first to take notice, finding The Stooges to be a very welcome continuation of early Velvet Underground (incidentally, another act with a notable Bowie connection — ironically, the legendary writer never had much time for the Dame himself) and the heyday of garage rock. Others would follow suit, especially once his reputation as a godfather of punk has been solidified. Pop isn't the most obviously talented figure so his appeal among journalists may not be overly clear but his commitment to his live shows (even subsequent to his days of self-mutilation), single-mindedness and the fact that he's made the most of his abilities deserves respect and these were elements they were quick to recognise. Growing up, you'd seldom hear his music on the radio or see his videos on TV and he was never in the charts but his name would regularly pop up in print and he'd frequently be listed in end-of-the-year polls. Nobody bought his stuff but everyone with an opinion seemed to like him. (As Brian Eno once said, only 10,000 people bought the first Stooges album but all of them would go on to set up their own underground music magazine)
The peak periods of Pop's career often coincided with his interactions with David Bowie. When the pop chameleon convinced The Stooges to reform so he could record them properly for their third and final album Raw Power, it came at a time when the producer had just been coming off the breakthrough success of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. They don't have much in common but they are both brilliant LPs. Though Bowie had been playing around with a harder rock sound, it's nothing compared with the harsh, piercing sludge rock of Iggy & The Stooges. Despite his creative impulses, it's possible that he saw Pop's work as just what he would have wanted to do had he been so limited.
Pop was dormant through much of the mid-seventies but then he and Bowie reconnected and the two shared a flat in West Berlin. To say this period was prolific would be an understatement. Each would record a pair of albums in 1976 and '77 and they would all be first rate. Pop's The Idiot, with its Kraut rock beats and warped funk sound, was unlike any other record in his career and was, as Bowie would later admit, a dry run for the remarkable Low and Heroes albums that he would soon record. Lust for Life would arrive later in the year and it would be much closer to a straightforward Iggy album with less of an obvious debt to Bowie. To this day they are an amazing quartet of albums.
Though this had been a fruitful period, the pair would soon go their separate ways and wouldn't reconvene for nearly a decade. By this time, Bowie had become the rock and roll superstar he had always threatened to be while Pop just continued being himself. As I have previously discussed, Dame David took some time off from recording in the mid-eighties and one of his side projects was producing the latest album by his buddy from Michigan with the wrinkles and the plasticine physique. They'd struck gold before so why not this time too?
Bowie expressed some regret that he used his friend as a "guinea pig" on the sessions for The Idiot but he wouldn't need to feel quite so guilty this time round. Where the Dame had been young, ambitious and hungry in '72 and drug-addled, penniless and even hungrier five years later, he was now clean, rich and well-nourished and always up for hitting the slopes in the Alps; for his part, Pop had been rescued twice previously by his friend but now he was relatively sober and taking up golf and wasn't in need of getting his career going again. Yet, it still helped, as his cover of the Johnny O'Keefe 1958 hit "Wild One" (rechristened here as "Real Wild Child") gave him a UK hit single and got him into several film soundtracks of the age — although not as many as I would have guessed. This unexpected smash didn't lead to anything else but not for lack of trying: "Isolation" would be a third unsuccessful attempt at more hit parade action. But it's likely that Bowie's comfortable lifestyle had dulled his quality control: he wasn't going to use Iggy as a guinea pig this time but he wasn't about to drop some mind-blowing new musical discovery in his lap either.
Clearly Tom Hibbert appreciates "Isolation" but I have to wonder if this is due at least as much to his admiration for the artist as the record itself. As ever, Pop puts his all into it, his underrated voice hitting notes usually reserved for his buddy, the former Thin White Duke. The song shares more than a little in common with "Teenage Wildlife" from Bowie's Scary Monsters LP but it must be said that Pop has believability on his side. His friend and collaborator was the consummate performer yet one could sometimes see the performance all too clearly ('Acting Without Acting' as they call it in Curb Your Enthusiasm); Pop's shtick was to live himself out in his act. It's still a performance but still...
Iggy Pop and David Bowie's third go round wasn't nearly as successful as their first two stints together and their work from 1986-87 is now mostly forgotten. The back-and-forth inspiration of old had been diminished to the bare means of Pop grasping his chum's big eighties' sound and Bowie moving back into the heavier world of the former Stooge. And while his partner struggled to get back on track, Pop improved upon the disappointing Blah-Blah-Blah album that they did together and has released a series of respectable records ever since. Bowie may have been the one with the legacy but he could have still stood to learn a thing or two from Iggy Pop.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Fleetwood Mac: "Seven Wonders"
Iggy Pop and David Bowie hit peaks in 1977 but neither came close to the mammoth success of ver Mac, a British blues group that evolved into a California soft rock colossus. Everyone bought Rumours but they swiftly alienated their fans with subsequent album Tusk, a disjointed but brilliant work. Nevertheless, they would remain a big act through the eighties though they were never able to properly follow up their giant billion seller until 1987's Tango in the Night. It was big but it really goes to show how giving the public what they want comes with a price. Sounding like a mainstream country song of the time (if a pretty substandard one), "Seven Wonders" failed to impress anyone as the Fleets feebly attempted to recapture a soft rock sound that they had already mastered and moved on from. The mighty had fallen but at least it was into yet more billions.
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