Preliminaries - Iggy Pop
As the Cornublog evolves, we'll be experimenting with new ways to highlight music and the artists behind the music. As much as time allows, the Cornu staff will be selecting Albums of the Week and then selecting an artist of the month at the conclusion of the month. This will allow our truly subjective and opaque selection process to consider the vague and stringent qualifications for selection as Artist of the Month in more detail than the past knee jerk selection process.
The album of the week for December 7, 2009 is Iggy Pop's Preliminaries. Iggy Pop has an impressive career playing with many of rock musics greats, and is considered by many to be the "Godfather of Punk" though he has had limited commercial success with his only top 40 hit coming with the duet Candy sung with Kate Pierson of the B-52's. Iggy Pop coauthored songs with David Bowie and even went through rehab with him in Germany.
I've always admired Iggy Pop, and seen him as an influential character on modern music, but I have not gone much beyond his 1990 Brick by Brick album. When I saw the album Preliminaries in the hot bin at the library, I picked it up and gave it a listen. I've been playing it over and over. Surprisingly, the album starts with Iggy singing in French in Les Feuilles Mortes and the album flows as a reported score for Michel Houellebecoq's novel The Possibility of An Island. This album draws me in a way Lou Reed's Magic and Loss did, both delighting me and haunting me. I like it so much I'm going to check out the novel and keep Preliminaries on repeat for the week!
I'm so delighted that JP, the Parsliarian is already BC proficient and aware. You Peeps don't know what is coming, but cornustaff is happy to announce that JP pigtails will be laying down some hip hot trail advice for all us music listeners.
ReplyDeletepeace and check out Bonnie 'Prince' Billy if you love BC!
Well, I checked out the Possibility of an Island and I'll have to leave it as a possibility for someone else. I found it too cynical, too full of name dropping and narcicism... 60 pages in had barely introduced the concept of the end of civilization or where ever it was going. For me the album worked, while the book did not.
ReplyDelete