Iggy Pop’s latest album “Every Loser” got its name from the track “Comments”, in which the godfather of punk thunders: “Every loser needs a little joy.” The song weighs in on online male online trolls and how well Pop thinks they feel when they call him a “wimp” in the comments. This is one of the many moments in “Every Loser” when the 75-year-old musician looks at the modern world through the prism of a wise and daring punk filter. You see, Jim Osterberg has seen and experienced all this, and he is ready to talk about it as long as you are ready to listen to it in the loudest, most exuberant way.
The Stooges frontman begins his 19th solo performance with the words “I have a dick and two balls, it’s bigger than all of you”, a phrase that was lovingly welcomed by executive producer Andrew Watt (who releases “Every Loser” on his Gold Tooth Records label). calls him “aggressive” and “irreconcilable”. The first line of the song can’t make you not laugh hysterically,” says Watt. “I mean, this is Iggy as he is.”
Watt was not mistaken in this description. The album’s 11 tracks are a high—speed jaunt full of delicious doses of wit and courage. The time has long passed when most punks exchanged their stage images for slow-motion reflections on days long gone, the inventor of stage immersion draws us into the present with the same primal rock energy with which he began his career in the 60s. the swan song is not visible. We haven’t even heard Iggy in this form for quite some time, after a decade of spoken jazz and the mystery invented by Homme.
The album features a stellar lineup of rock legends: Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, bassist Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Travis Barker of Blink 182, guitarist Stone Gossard, former Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and Jane Dave Navarro and Eric Avery of Addiction, as well as the late Foo Fighter drummer Taylor Hawkins. house group. But no one steals the stage from Iggy, who hosts “Every Loser,” turning every version of his sound and experience into moments that make you laugh and scream before sitting you down for a moment to reflect.
In the slow and exciting “Morning Show,” Pop, relying on the rattling of his register, sings about how to fix his face before a public performance. In “Stretched Johnny,” he uses his vibrato to confirm, “God made me a drug addict/but that’s what Satan told me.” In a hilarious and incendiary “Neo-punk”, he points out how much has changed in the so-called punk scene between the ruined and impoverished earnings that Pop shared with his Stooges comrades, and the celebrities and luxurious punk stars they enjoy today.
“Every Loser” ends with “The Regency”, a track that starts as a ballad and then turns into an all-out riot. In it, Hawkins plays drums in a manner that Pop describes as “seeping” and “bubbling” before the song gently returns to the doo-wop tempo, closing the album. It’s the perfect ending for an album that, even if lyrically sincere, self-critical, or acutely aware, manages to remain larger than life. “Every Loser” is a modern revival of primitive punk from the only musician capable of creating it.
Details
- Release date: January 6
- Record label: Atlantic Records/Gold Tooth Records
