IGGY POP
Free LOMA VISTA/CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL
8/10
STOOGE, solo artist, actor, raconteur, collaborator, lecturer, author, artist’s model, radio host, barista… Iggy Pop has enjoyed many guises during his formidable career. Latterly, though, he has taken on a new role – as a semi-retired rock star. While his last studio album, 2016’s Post Pop Depression, gave Pop the highest chart placing of his career, that success took place under the shadow of his longtime champion David Bowie, who died shortly before the album’s release. After the tour to promote the record, Pop now admits he “felt like I wanted to put on shades, turn my back, and walk away”. Fortuitously for us, retirement seems not to have suited him.
Never content to rest on his reputation, Pop collaborated with Oneohtrix Point Never on “The Pure And The Damned”, for the Safdie Brothers’ 2017 film Good Time – then, last year, teamed up with Underworld, delivering a series of avuncular monologues for the Teatime Dub Encounters album. Now, finally, Pop has returned to the studio for Free – his 18th solo record, and one that contains a revealing note to self: “To lay
