Thursday , March 28 2024
The work of a mature artist who's not afraid to take chances.

Music Review: Iggy Pop – Preliminaires

If there is an industry more conservative and less likely to take chances than popular music I'd be surprised. Now obviously I'm not talking about the independents who operate on the fringes of the business, but the big players for whom this is a multi-million-dollar industry. They're about as liable to take a risk as Bush and Cheney are to be invited as guest speakers at an Amnesty International convention. It's why when you turn on your radio or listen to the Top Forty, you're only going to hear the same few songs played over and over again.

Oh there might be some variations — perhaps the lyrics will change or the face behind the voice will be different — but pretty much everything else is just a variation on a few themes. Don't fool yourself into believing that the music industry has anything to do with artistic creation; it's all about making money, which means taking no chances and not messing with a formula that works. Both of which are the antithesis of artistic creation, as taking risks and doing things differently are how an artist breaks new ground. When was the last time you heard an established popular musician or band do something radically different or even change their sound in a minor way?

While it's true there are some who may tinker with their sound, a quick survey of their careers will show it always remains within certain parameters. Very few have had the courage and the ability to almost completely re-invent themselves and move their music in a completely new direction. Which is exactly what Iggy Pop has done with his new release on EMI, Preliminaires. For instead of an album filled with his signature smash and destroy rock and roll that earned him the name "grandfather of punk," Preliminaires sounds like it sprung from the cafes and bistros of the Left Bank in Paris.

Such isn't surprising when you consider the fact that it was inspired by French novelist Michel Houellebecoq's 2005 novel, The Possibility Of An Island. Iggy had been approached to write some songs for a documentary about the author's life including his attempt to direct a film of his book. However, what he ended up creating was a score for the novel itself, for as he states in a press release announcing the disc, "I found the emotions from my reading transforming themselves into music."

You know you're in for something different from what you'd expect from Iggy right from the start as the album opens with him singing the French standard, "Les Feuilles Mortes (Automn Leaves), made famous by Edith Piaf and Yves Montand. While there's something initially disconcerting about hearing Iggy Pop singing in French, once you recover from the shock what's really amazing is how right it sounds, how much his voice suits this style of singing. For unlike what we consider ballads in North America — where the singer is expected to croon the lyrics in dulcet tones that display little or no real emotion — songs like "Les Feuilles Mortes" were written for voices with character; voices that might be a little rough around the edges but still capable of expressing emotion.

However, Iggy doesn't just stick to ballads over the course of Preliminaires, as there's the New Orleans jazz sounds of "King Of The Dogs" and even a throwback to his more familiar sound with "Nice To Be Dead." Yet that's the anomaly on this disc and its immediately followed by a cover of "Insensatez" ("How Insensitive") by Calos Jobim — an old bossa nova standard. It's a testimony to Iggy's capabilities as a singer, and the sincerity of his voice, that a tune which originally must have been more than a little saccharine sounds so genuine when he interprets it. It's hard not to think of bad lounge singers when you hear a song like this, but no one will ever be able to accuse Iggy Pop of sounding like he's working a piano bar.

Iggy Pop has always had a very distinctive and powerful voice, developed over years of having to make himself heard above the guitars and drums of the hard rock he and the Stooges used to record and perform. Yet there was also always the suggestion of an expressive voice, which would occasionally show itself when the band played slower numbers. On Preliminaires, though, he's finally able to show off the full extent of his vocal prowess. What impressed me the most was the amount of character in his voice and just how expressive it is.

Whether it's the tongue-in-cheek humor of "King Of The Dogs," the longing of "I Want To Go To The Beach," or the sense of desolation he's able to convey on "Spanish Coast," you can't help but feel whatever it is he's trying to convey. On the latter, for instance, not only is the desolation of the scenery made clear, but so too is the desolation of the song's protagonist merely by how he modulates the tone of his voice. He uses his ability to sing on the lower end of the register to good advantage here, but it's not just a matter of singing low and sounding gloomy, as he's genuinely able to express the emptiness that lay at the heart of the song.

It's not often that pop musicians with long and established careers will take the chance of recording an album radically different from almost anything they've done prior. While there are songs on Preliminaires that one can identify with Iggy Pop's early career, the majority of the material on this album is completely unlike anything you've ever heard him do before. Even better, though, is that it's some of the best music he's yielded in ages. It's far more sophisticated than anything I've heard him do before either musically, emotionally, or intellectually. Yet, at the same time he retains the energy and power he's always been famous for. Only now he's narrowed his focus so that it's all channeled into the emotional content of the music, which makes the material all the more captivating. Preliminaires is the work of a mature artist who's not afraid to take chances and, as a result, this is one of the most rewarding albums released in North America this year to date.

About Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of three books commissioned by Ulysses Press, "What Will Happen In Eragon IV?" (2009) and "The Unofficial Heroes Of Olympus Companion" and "Introduction to Greek Mythology For Kids". Aside from Blogcritics he contributes to Qantara.de and his work has appeared in the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and has been translated into numerous languages in multiple publications.

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