Iggy Pop's 17th solo album, Post Pop Depression, is no Raw Power by The Stooges, but it would have been awkward to have to watch the weathered 68-year-old rub steaks and peanut butter all over his perpetually slithering torso anyway. The proto-punk pioneer's new collaboration with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, also of Eagles of Death Metal, shows he still has as much "Lust For Life" as one might expect with the support of Dean Fertita from Queens Of The Stone Age and The Dead Weather and Matt Helders from Arctic Monkeys.
The entire album is reminiscent of the proto-punker's Berlin era. In other words, it's evocative of his collaborations with David Bowie in the late 1970s. The track titled "German Days" is especially Bowie-esque, and with lyrics about "Brilliant brains / And the end of pain / Germany / Must germinate / In a German way," the song feels like a fitting tribute to the years the two lived and worked together in Germany.
After The Stooges broke up following the release of Raw Power, Bowie enlisted Pop for his Station to Station Tour. As the story goes, the pair were arrested for marijuana possession during a stop in Rochester, New York in March 1976, and hightailed it to Berlin once all charges were dropped.
The pair of glamorous weirdos lived -- and wrote some of the most groundbreaking material in rock history -- there for several years. During that time the "Search And Destroy" singer signed a record deal as a solo artist and, with the help of the Thin White Duke, released his acclaimed debut solo release, The Idiot, and it's seminal follow-up, Lust For Life.
It was on those two albums in particular that he developed the sound for which he is best known: juxtaposing elements of punk and pop, fusing scathing, curt and sometimes crass lyrics with 1970s rock-and-roll. It is that signature sound that he reclaims and refines on his latest effort.
Some other highlights include the politically-charged lyrics on "American Valhalla," the laptop rant on the otherwise chill "Paraguay" and the morbid-but-pretty "Vulture."
Like the past three decades' worth of the former Stooges frontman's work, not every moment of the new LP is the most punk rock of endeavors. Throughout his career, however, the leathery "Real Wild Child" singer has managed to make even appearing on American Idol seem edgey.
Such is the case with the somewhat cheesier ballads on the new album, "Break Into Your Heart" and "Gardenia." They might be introspective, but they're also raw and demonstrate compassion, which is pretty punk in itself.
The artist previously fused the cheesy with the cult with similar success. In the '90s, he played the role of Nona F. Mecklenburg's father on Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Pete And Pete. More recently, he was featured on Kesha's 2012 album Warrior.
The rock legend has said this album marks his final full-length studio effort. Give it a listen below.
