A Modern Guy

I wrote a piece about Iggy Pop for JC at The Vinyl Villain, putting together an imaginary compilation album from Iggy's wildly inconsistent solo career. You can read it here if you're a fan. I put in 10 Iggy songs, starting with the Bowie and Berlin pairing of The Idiot and Lust For Life and pogoing through his back catalogue ending up at 2016's Post Pop Depression, plus a bonus song to represent his many guest vocal spots. I'm still getting loads out of his collaboration with Underworld, the Teatime Dub Encounters ep released this summer, and I think it will come to be seen as a late-Iggy triumph and part of me regrets not including a song from it on the ICA. I left off anything from his 1975 album Kill City, written and recorded with ex-Stooge James Williamson and eventually released in 1977. Kill City was recorded while Iggy was resident in hospital going through treatment for heroin addiction. He was allowed out at weekends to record his vocals. These are not the ideal circumstances to make great records. The title track is a decent mid-70s rocker but I still think I was right to leave it off the final line up of my compilation.

Kill City

Two other songs that didn't make the cut and were mentioned by people in the comments thread are this pair- the first, a really well sung love song from Iggy's 1990 album Brick By Brick, a duet with Kate Pierson. Iggy said Candy was the only good pop song he'd ever written and as if to prove him right it was the only single of his to reach the US top 40.



My bonus track was Iggy's guest vocal on Death In Vegas' Aisha in 1999. Since then Iggy has spread his voice over various songs by other people, including Aggrophobe, a song by Manchester group PINS from last year (the video was filmed in Gullivers, a bar on Oldham Street in town and is probably NSFW, unless you happen to work in a bar or stripclub).