Iggy Goes Solo

It’s Throwback Thursday and we head back to March 18, 1977. When on this day, the lead singer of one of the most famous, seminal proto-punk bands decided to release his debut solo album…with the help from The Thin White Duke.

Iggy Pop was the lead singer of the band The Stooges , formed in 1967. But the band broke up after three incredible albums and Iggy descended into drug addiction. He found a bond with David Bowie, who asked Pop to tour with him in 1976 in support of the album Station to Station. Following the tour, the two shacked up in France and would soon record much of Bowie’s album Low.

Bowie and Pop then turned their focus to songs that would eventually become Iggy Pop’s debut solo album, The Idiot.

The sound was completely different from what Pop had recorded with the harder rock sound of the Stooges. He took from what Bowie had done in his previous three albums and melded his influences and raw power to create a post-punk debut album that remains an influential classic.

The album features the original version of “China Girl”, written about Pop’s relationship with his Asian girlfriend Keulan Nguyen, and of course, Bowie would later re-record it for his multi-platinum 1983 album, Let’s Dance.

Iggy described the album as “a cross between James Brown and Kraftwerk” and it resurrected his career. It combined the best of both artists. There was the Bowie influence all over the album, using synthesizers, a saxophone and other instruments somewhat foreign to Iggy. Meanwhile, Pop brought his edgy lyrics and even helped influence Bowie’s later recording of “Heroes” by improvising some of his lyrics while standing next to the microphone. Styles varied with comparisons clearly to Bowie, but also bands like The Velvet Underground and even a vocal comparison to Jim Morrison of The Doors.

The album’s reputation and influence is heard through the music of Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Peter Murphy and many others. Siouxsie Sioux perhaps put it best when she said The Idiot provided a “re-affirmation that our suspicions were true: the man is a genius.”