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Iggy Pop’s gift for improvising lyrics as powerful and sinewy as his body has made him a natural duet partner throughout his 50-year career. Although David Bowie was perhaps his most famous musical partner, Iggy has sung with an incredibly diverse group of musicians. The earliest punks and new wave musicians of the 70s, minimalist classical composers, electronic polyglots and pop stars whose careers would not have been possible without his influence. And many of whom weren’t even born when the Stooges were formed. Here are 20 of his most intriguing collaborations.
The Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (feat. John Cale) (1969)
Stooges manager Danny Fields hired Lou Reed’s former Velvet Underground partner to produce the band’s debut album, which proved to be an inspired choice. Cale contributed some brilliant musical touches. His persistent droning piano and haunting sleigh bells in “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” as well as his viola, which provides the keynote for the 10-minute “We Will Fall.”
More importantly, Cale’s insight into the group’s dynamics enabled him to coax an almost professional performance from the sloppy punks. “He noticed that the boys didn’t play as well when I wasn’t dancing around,” Iggy later recalled. “They just don’t do that. I suspect they find it deeply embarrassing somehow. And that’s why it’s exciting and kind of breaks down barriers… The more I danced, the more they lowered their heads and stared at their toes, and the better they played. But it was tiring. Damn tiring.”
“Lust for Life” (with David Bowie) (1977)
“He brought me back to life,” Iggy said of David Bowie following his friend’s death earlier this year. “The friendship was basically this guy saving me from certain professional and perhaps personal ruin. It’s as simple as that.” Bowie met Iggy in 1971, and the following year the Thin White Duke produced the Stooges’ final studio album, Raw Power.
The intervention Iggy is referring to took place in 1976, after the Stooges’ dissolution, when Pop spiraled out of control and found himself committed to a psychiatric hospital at UCLA. Bowie visited Iggy and invited him on tour. The two men fought together in West Berlin to get clean. In Germany, Bowie produced two of Iggy’s seminal albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. They composed the latter album’s title song while lying on the floor and Bowie playing a riff on his son Duncan’s ukulele that revolved around the rhythm of the Armed Forces Network call sign.
In the ’80s, Bowie recorded his own versions of the songs he and Iggy had written together in the ’70s. Including the hit “China Girl,” which helped Pop financially during a difficult period.
“Play It Safe” (feat. Simple Minds) (1980)
While Iggy was recording “Soldier” at Rockford Studios in rural Wales, he and Bowie decided they needed a male chorus to sing “I want to be a criminal/Play it safe” in the style of a football chant. At the same time, a young Scottish new wave band was also recording at Rockford Studios, which saw Simple Minds guest on an Iggy Pop track.
“In his diplomatic way, Bowie said, ‘Why don’t the people who sing professionally step closer to the microphone, and the people who don’t step further back?'” Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr later told Mojo magazine. “So I found myself between David Bowie and Iggy Pop and sang this song.”
Speaking of sandwiches, the sessions also completely upended Kerr’s expectations of Bowie’s diet. “I remember David Bowie eating a lot of cheese and thinking, I didn’t think David Bowie was a cheese eater.”
“Repo Man” (feat. Steve Jones, Nigel Harrison and Clem Burke) (1984)
Iggy Pop was in bad shape when director Alex Cox personally visited him at his apartment and asked him to record a song for his later cult classic “Repo Man.” Iggy was just Iggy and had no problem quickly putting together a punk supergroup. Steve Jones, the guitarist of the Sex Pistols, as well as Nigel Harrison and Clem Burke, the rhythm section of Blondie.
Chas Ferry, an assistant engineer on the session, claims that the four musicians put the song together in 20 minutes before recording began and then recorded “Repo Man” in two takes. To which Iggy announced, “Well, I think that’s good enough. Unless someone has a problem with it.”
Ryuichi Sakamoto, “Risky” (1987)
The same year he composed his Oscar-winning score for The Last Emperor, Ryuichi Sakamoto put together a predominantly instrumental album in collaboration with bassist and producer Bill Laswell. “Nat Geo” explored international musical styles and cutting-edge electronics and featured an ensemble that also included Bootsy Collins and Sly Dunbar.
Iggy contributed the album’s only English-language vocal part. He begins “Risky” with the words “Born in a corporate dungeon/Where people are cheated of life/I knew I could never stay home” before segueing into the deep crooning style he discovered in the ’80s.