The classic rock band Iggy Pop simply “couldn’t stand”
The tale of rock survival that is Iggy Pop‘s turbulent story is as about as extraordinary as it gets.
Earning the title ‘Godfather of Punk’ from his early 1970s days fronting Detroit garage force of nature The Stooges and unleashing legendary albums like Fun House and Raw Power, the band’s crash-and-burn demise should’ve spelt the end. Like a cockroach after a nuclear blast, Pop dusted himself off, decamped to Berlin with David Bowie and released the acclaimed The Idiot and Lust for Life, a post-punk revival that cemented his icon status throughout the rest of his prolific career, culminating in his ‘elder statesmen’ role on 6 Music’s Iggy Confidential show.
Creative integrity and authenticity have been solid guiding principles throughout his wieldy output, even if the results vary. Whether it’s imbibing 1982 effort ‘Zombie Birdhouse’ with a spike of afro-new wave, his flirtation with metal on ’88’s ‘Instinct’, or his all-out dive bomb into New Orleans Jazz on the Michel Houellebecq inspired Préliminaires, a reaction to “idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music”, Pop confessed on the album’s teaser at the time. Even his low points never feel insincere, his rightly maligned Skull Ring nevertheless coming off like an excuse to hang out with the pop-punk acts of the day he helped bring about, like Sum 41 or Green Day and have some good, clean fun.
With such evident reverence for artistic probity (let’s not talk about Swiftcover), it shouldn’t be any surprise that Pop can be quite candid about his feelings toward bands that he suspects have ‘sold out’. Stadium rock giants Led Zeppelin were targets of his ire in a 1995 letter following his interview with Plazm‘s Joshua Berger, criticising the state of the contemporary alternative music scene: “The ‘music’ is mostly 60’s and 70’s rehash, especially, Led Zeppelin, who I never could stand in the first place.”
He’s also on record for lambasting The Clash’s overt political posturing, revealing in a ’12 New York Times interview: “I couldn’t stand the sincere punks. I never believed them. Still don’t.” There was one band in particular, however, who truly got his goat.
Something Irish rock behemoth U2 seem to be especially adept at is ticking people off. Whether it’s the public fatigue of frontman Bono’s ‘humanitarian’ shenanigans or their earnest stadium performances, U2 were already in the music world’s bad books by the time of their ill-judged marketing ploy with Apple. For the release of their album Songs of Innocence, Bono (and it was Bono) had the lightbulb eureka idea of granting all iTunes users the record in their ‘purchases’ section for free.
Aside from the growing conversation around music’s devaluing, it also left a nasty aftertaste of corporate overreach for millions of iTunes users, despite the fact a significant chunk of said users simply hate U2, one tweet at the time simply stating “the free U2 album is overpriced.” Ooof!
U2’s hubristic stunt wasn’t lost on Pop, who made clear his feeling in a John Peel lecture in Manchester: “It’s your choice to give or withhold,” he said. “You are giving a lot of yourself, besides the money. But in this particular case, without the convention, maybe some people felt like they were robbed of that chance and they have a point.”
Stealing the agency of potential music fans to carry out the sacred ritual of seeking out your record (albeit less romantic in the streaming age) was an unforgivable ‘weird sin’ that was anathema to everything Pop stood for. Bono eventually expressed regret for the ‘Apple incident’, declaring in his Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story memoir: “I take full responsibility… I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite.”
