Like Brick by Brick, Every Loser features Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses on bass and is helmed by a super-producer (Don Was in that case Andrew Watt in this one). This new album skips over his 1980s artistic slump and goes right to the Iggy of Brick by Brick. After that, Iggy revisited his Berlin period (1976-1978) with the help of Josh Homme on Post-Pop Depression. Following Ron Asheton’s death, what was left of the 1970-1974 Stooges reunited from 2009 to 2016. The remnants of the 1967-1970 Stooges came back together from 2003-2009. Since 2003, when he reunited with the Asheton brothers, Iggy has been reliving - in chronological order - the various stages of his career. He’s a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2010), winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2020), and a recipient of the Polar Music Prize (2022). At the same time, his records were produced by sophisticates like John Cale and David Bowie, and on his weekly BBC 6 radio show, he shows off his considerable musical erudition. He smeared himself with peanut butter, cut himself with broken glass, abused drugs, was institutionalized, and hung out with his “Dum Dum” Stooges bandmates. He grew up in a trailer park but was the brilliant valedictorian of his high school. Loser-winner and low-high dichotomies have defined Iggy throughout his career. It’s maybe even his best in more than four decades since New Values was released in 1979. This is his most consistent, fully realized album since Brick by Brick (1990). At age 75, it’s shocking that Iggy is not only still alive but also making surprisingly relevant music. He has never had an album crack the top 10 or a single in the top 20, but he’s inarguably one of the most important and influential rock artists of all time. But does it describe Iggy Pop? Maybe, if the pop charts are what measure success, but artistically, Iggy’s anything but a loser. The word “loser” - denoting someone unsuccessful in life - is in the title of Every Loser and the name of the band that plays on it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |