Playlist: Every song Iggy Pop and David Bowie collaborated on
In the early 1970s, David Bowie, poised to break through on a global scale with his Ziggy Stardust alter ego, was introduced to the American musicians Lou Reed and Iggy Pop by the actor Tony Zanetta. Bowie had been a fan of both for their respective work in leading The Velvet Underground and The Stooges. In 1972, Bowie and his Spiders from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson flexed their production muscles on Reed’s solo masterpiece Transformer, attracting Iggy’s attention as The Stooges squared up to their third album, Raw Power.
“The most absurd situation I encountered when I was recording was the first time I worked with Iggy Pop,” Bowie recalled in a 1991 interview with International Musician. “He wanted me to mix Raw Power, so he brought the 24-track tape in, and he put it up. He had the band on one track, lead guitar on another and him on a third.”
“Out of 24 tracks, there were just three tracks that were used,” Bowie continued. “He said, ‘See what you can do with this’. I said, ‘Jim, there’s nothing to mix’. So we just pushed the vocal up and down a lot. On at least four or five songs, that was the situation, including ‘Search and Destroy’. That’s got such a peculiar sound because all we did was occasionally bring the lead guitar up and take it out.”
In 1974, The Stooges disbanded in disarray as Iggy spiralled amid his affair with hard drugs and alcoholism. This dark patch for the vocalist reached its nadir as he checked himself into a Californian mental institute for a period in an attempt to get his head straight. In 1976, the ever-loyal Bowie visited Iggy, urging him to join him on his Isolar Tour.
It appears Bowie had Iggy’s best interests at heart and felt therapy outside of the asylum might work to Iggy’s advantage. Duly, the pair agreed to distance themselves geographically from their addictions by travelling to Château d’Hérouville, the French location where Bowie had recorded his covers album, Pin-Ups, in 1973.
Here, Bowie began recording his 1977 masterpiece Low, the first instalment of his acclaimed and experimental Berlin Trilogy. Meanwhile, Bowie helped Iggy’s triumphant return as a solo artist, beginning with The Idiot. This marked a pivotal moment in Iggy’s life as he returned to the rails and welcomed a more intricate edge to his trademark sound.
“The friendship was basically that this guy salvaged me from certain professional and maybe personal annihilation — simple as that,” Iggy said in a tribute following Bowie’s death in 2016. “A lot of people were curious about me, but only he was the one who had enough truly in common with me, who actually really liked what I did and could get on board with it, and who also had decent enough intentions to help me out. He did a good thing.”
“He resurrected me,” Iggy added. “He was more of a benefactor than a friend in a way most people think of friendship. He went a bit out of his way to bestow some good karma on me.”
While in Berlin, Bowie produced Iggy’s first two albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life, offering his songwriting skills and various instrumental tracks to many of the songs. Meanwhile, Bowie recorded three of his finest albums with the help of Brian Eno, welcoming Iggy to provide backing vocals in the Low song ‘What in the World’.
Following Lust for Life, Iggy’s solo career was set firmly on the rails and with strong wings, he flew Bowie’s nest. The pair remained close friends throughout the rest of Bowie’s life and collaborated on several later occasions. Most notably, Bowie once again offered his production to Iggy’s 1986 album Blah-Blah-Blah and invited Iggy to collaborate on ‘Tumble and Twirl’ and ‘Dancing with the Boys’ from his 1984 album Tonight.
Below, we have created a comprehensive list of the songs David Bowie and Iggy Pop collaborated on throughout their careers. If you like what you see, you can have a listen on our Spotify playlist.
Every song Iggy Pop and David Bowie collaborated on:
- ‘Search and Destroy’
- ‘Gimme Danger’
- ‘Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell’
- ‘Penetration’
- ‘Raw Power’
- ‘I Need Somebody’
- ‘Shake Appeal’
- ‘Death Trip’
- ‘China Girl’
- ‘Sister Midnight’
- ‘Lust For Life’
- ‘Nightclubbing’
- ‘Funtime’
- ‘Baby’
- ‘Dum Dum Boys’
- ‘Tiny Girls’
- ‘Mass Production’
- ‘Lust for Life’
- ‘Sixteen’
- ‘The Passenger’
- ‘Success’
- ‘Some Weird Sin’
- ‘Turn Blue’
- ‘Neighbourhood Threat’
- ‘Fall In Love With Me’
- ‘Tonight’
- ‘What in the World’
- ‘Real Wild Child (Wild One)’
- ‘Baby, It Can’t Fall’
- ‘Shades’
- ‘Fire Girl’
- ‘Isolation’
- ‘Cry for Love’
- ‘Blah-Blah-Blah’
- ‘Hideaway’
- ‘Winners & Losers’
- ‘Little Miss Emperor’
- ‘Play it Safe’
- ‘Tumble and Twirl’
- ‘Dancing with the Big Boys’
- ‘Red Money’
