Section:GDN 12 PaGe:12 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 16:25 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian
  12 Friday 6 September 2019
  Reviews Music

Passenger

along for

the ride

Alexis Petridis’s album of the week

Iggy Pop Free

the spoken-word-heavy Avenue

B , unveiled to minimal sales and

critical raspberries 20 years ago.

But even the ardent Pop-timist

who’s sat through that might fi nd

that certain moments on Free cause

them to hit the panic button, not

least when Pop augments his The

Shadow of Your Smile baritone with

a pub-singer vibrato so pronounced

and arch that, at one point during

Page, it causes him to stretch the

word “all” out over nine syllables.

There are undoubtedly moments

where the collaboration sparks.

Love’s Missing is taut, gripping and

not unlike the Pixies , had the Pixies

opted to expand their line up with a

featured the mind-blowing sound of

Pop essaying the Beatles’ Michelle.

But perhaps not even that could

prepare you for Free, on which Pop

collaborates with jazz trumpeter

Lero n Thomas and shoegaze-

inspired guitarist Noveller , recites

poetry – by Lou Reed and Dylan

Thomas – over new-age y piano

and ambient synth textures and

occasionally sounds less like one

of rock history’s greatest frontmen

than a special guest, a man with

a cameo role on his own album.

His contribution to the title track

consists of him saying “I wanna be

free”, twice. The nearest comparison

from his back catalogue might be

Rock

Label Loma Vista Recordings

★★☆☆☆

I n 2007, in the middle

of the re-formed Stooges’ chaotic

Glastonbury performance, Iggy

Pop suddenly struck up with an a

cappella rendition of 1965 movie

theme The Shadow of Your Smile.

This clearly wasn’t something the

audience were expecting: No Fun,

yes; I Wanna Be Your Dog, of course;

an easy listening ballad made famous

by Johnny Mathis and subsequently

covered by Engelbert Humperdinck,

not so much. But it wasn’t an isolated

incident: throughout the Stooges’

career, Pop showed a propensity for

launching into The Shadow of Your

Smile at unlikely moments. He sang

it in 1972, for CBS Records boss Clive

Davis, in the hope of convincing

him to sign the Stooges at a point

in their career when the band had

been written off as a joke: a move

that paid off. Later that year, he

sang it during the Stooges’ mythic

performance at London’s Scala

cinema, to an audience who were

largely bemused or horrifi ed by what

was happening on stage. There are

muddy bootleg recordings of him

singing it at whatever godforsaken

venues the Stooges were reduced to

playing in 1974, during the original

band’s harrowing terminal phase.

Pop, it seems, has always been

keen to demonstrate that, amid the

chaos and bloodshed and visceral

rock’n’roll on which his reputation is

based, he’s a man of many, perhaps

improbable, parts.

This is worth remembering

when trying to make sense of his

recent solo releases. The Stooges’

re-formation – and their failure to

translate the force of their live shows

into a potent studio album – seemed

to have largely rid him of the desire

to make loud, aggressive rock music.

Supposedly his last album, 2016’s

Post Pop Depression instead looked

to the arty angularity of his 70s

Bowie collaborations for inspiration.

Elsewhere, the Pop of The Shadow

of Your Smile has been very much in

evidence: 2009’s Préliminaires saw

him crooning Autumn Leaves and

fl irting with trad jazz; 2012’s Après

jazz trumpeter. Sonali , by contrast,

sounds like something from the

early 80s: wafty electronics, ringing

guitar harmonics, surprisingly

rapid-fi re drumming. It’s a curious

place for Iggy Pop to fetch up, but, as

we’ve already established, a certain

expectation-confounding streak has

always been in evidence.

Sonali also features the sound

of Pop audibly struggling to fi t the

lyrics to the music. In fact, lyrics

are a bit of a problem throughout.

Pop has been keen to point out

that Thomas and Noveller wrote

the album, and it’s tempting to say

you can see why. There’s clearly

nothing wrong with Dylan Thomas’

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good

Night or indeed Lou Reed ’s We Are

the People , which hails from 1970,

but sounds like an excoriation of

Trump’s America. Occasionally,

however, Pop seems to have

accepted the challenge to sing

something even more embarrassing

than the lyrics of DD’s, the re-formed

Stooges’ 2013 paean to large breasts.

On Dirty Sanchez , someone has

had the brainwave of using breasts

and penises as a metaphor for the

inequities of capitalism: “Just

because I like big tits doesn’t mean I

like big dicks, rich man make it stop –

we don’t all want the cock”.

It all ends after barely 30 minutes

with The Dawn : more dramatic

ambient tones, more spoken word,

this time delivered in a menacing

growl. “To lay down is to just give

up,” Pop says, which perhaps off ers

some explanation for the preceding

half-hour of poetry, weird vocal

experiments, excruciating lyrics and

occasional fl ashes of inspiration.

Around the time of Post Pop

Depression, he started talking of

retiring: the ensuing documentary,

American Valhalla , didn’t shy

away from showing the physical

toll being Iggy Pop on stage takes

on a septuagenarian. Like adding

vocals to Underworld’s music on last

year’s EP Teatime Dub Encounters ,

Free off ers him a way to continue,

to show his range without unduly

exerting himself. You can’t really

blame him, although you do wish

he’d exerted himself a little when

it came to quality control: it’s an

experiment that only fi tfully works,

that makes you eager for his next

album largely because this really

doesn’t feel like the right way for

Iggy Pop to bow out.

He sounds

less like one of

rock histor y’s

greatest

frontmen than

a guest on his

own album

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