With Whitney Houston’s funeral passing.
Is it time to reappraise other artists who have fallen blow their expected standards and down the artistic radar?
I am thinking of my long time hero Iggy Pop. He is not dead of course. Long live Iggy Pop! But what if Jimmy’s demise were tomorrow? What would happen? Would it be “Punk Music Legend Dies On Golf Course?”
Since he has been doing the insurance adverts he is “off the artistic roll call forever” if you agree with long dead comedian Bill Hicks.
“Here’s the deal, folks. You do a commercial – you’re off the artistic roll call, forever. End of story. Okay? You’re another whore at the capitalist gang bang and if you do a commercial, there’s a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink.” – Bill Hicks
Whasssgoingonnn? How can you go from I Wanna Be Your Dog to end your career with selling Swiftcover insurance Iggy?
I’m >morethan confuseddotcom. [We don’t get paid for this]
Have you become a Corporate Stooge?
I was incredibly disappointed in Jim’s decision to accept the advertiser’s shilling. But I’ve been disappointed in a lot of Iggy’s output in the last wee while too. Skull Ring? Beat ’em Up? I bought Beat ’em Up when it came out with some other albums too. I put them in my CD autochanger and put it on random. Hey! This is a return to form and yet completely different! Well done Iggy! But no it wasn’t….. This was not Iggy. It was The Strokes, “Is This It”. Soundalike and wishful thinking.
But if you are dead, all kinds of things are forgiven or brushed under the carpet.
So if Iggy really was or were dead what would we do?
Obituaries would mention two great Stooges albums, a Bowie inspired great third Stooges album comeback. A hiatus, then another Bowie inspired comeback with the brilliant Lust for Life and The Idiot. Some dodgy 1980s albums. Some forgotten gems like Zombie Birdhouse and New Values. A Trainspotting inspired resurgence. The Stooges reunion concerts. An excellent “Come up on the stage!” Glastonbury appearance. Death of Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton. Ex-Stooges guitarist James Williamson starts playing again. We’re back in business! Then Iggy does adverts….
“I’m Bored” is used for an advert. Something is happening here and who knows what it is. Insurance Co. adverts covered billboards rapidly. Swiftcover doesn’t cover musicians so chances are that he doesn’t even use the sponsor’s company himself and there is an Advertisings Agency Investigation.
Two lyrics stand out from Iggys “Brick by Brick” album.
“And the material singers will fade into dust
Like forgotten merchants of disgust
If I don’t crap out
No I won’t crap out
No I’ll never crap out
Oh I won’t crap out
I won’t crap out “
“We are played for suckers all the time
Phony rock and roll
It’s a crime
I don’t want to dip myself in trash
I don’t want to give myself for cash”
The album is still good but goes to show he has crapped out big time. Not only crapping out but becoming a hypocrite. Atlas shrugged, Mohammed coughed, Jesus wept and someone went Om Sri Ram Jai, Ram Jai, Jai Ram.
On the plus side, it has taken Iggy 25 years since saying he wouldn’t crap out (or 40 or so since he began) until he gave in. Or was it the first time that he was offered the dough that he accepted? Hmmmmmmmmmm., a lot of thinking, and more hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Anyway and in whatever way it happened, I played again The Stooges debut album the other day and heard Iggy again -as Iggy Stooge, at 21 years old. A Surly Shoegazer from Ann Arbour Michigan. He feels he is Trailer Trash. He is in the studio with a band of prototype punk rockers, long haired three chord hardcore shoegazers, and they are making one of the rawest, pounding, hardest, most stripped down, tribal and most unique of the dirtiest of the greatest albums ever to make it on to your record shelves. It was before it’s time in 1969.
Bring up the footage of Iggy 35 years later. That energy!
And all is forgiven.