Iggy Blows

With the help of David Bowie, Iggy Pop recorded and released his debut solo album, “The Idiot,” which garnered critical acclaim for the former front man of The Stooges. Regarded as a powerful departure from The Stooges’ hard rock style, Pop’s “The Idiot” now commands a substantial cult following.

Now, more than 30 years later, Pop released his 15th album, “Preliminaires,” which unfortunately deserves “The Idiot”’s misnomer and none of its critical accolades.
Inspired by Michel Houellebecq’s novel “La Possibilite d’une ile (The Possibility of an Island)”, Pop’s latest release drips with ostentatious francophone pretense.
From the very start, listeners and fans of Pop will likely plug their ears and hope that it ends sooner rather than later.

“Preliminaires” opens with a mangled and mutilated rendition of the 1940s French jazz standard, “Les feuilles mortes  (Autumn Leaves), “ which Pop sings in French.
The opening track’s deplorable vocals deface and tarnish Pop’s legacy of emotive singing in the past. Instead of his slight drawl during his earlier career, Pop’s gruff vocals sound like gravel being put in a wood chipper, leaving the listener dusty and thirsty for a reprieve.

Ignoring the cracked and creaking vocals, Pop’s lyrics have never been so simple, or simply inane. 

In “I Want to Go to the Beach,” Pop grunts, “There’s no where I want to be / And nobody I want to see,” which categorically reduces Pop’s songwriting to that of a 5th grader writing a poem about where he or she wants to go for summer vacation.
But Pop has succeeded in at least one way: brilliant instrumentals and orchestration. Lush with sounds of New Orleans jazz, “Preliminaires” offers listeners swooning saxophones, staggered drum beats and even a bossa nova, composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Pop also succeeded with beautiful album art, created by French-Iranian graphic novelist and Academy Award-winning animated film director Marjane Satrapi. But, truly, the acclaim for the artwork belongs to Satrapi, not Pop.

Iggy Pop has chosen to fade away and systematically erase his legacy rather than to accept his dwindling talent and retire.