On Préliminaires, Iggy Pop sounds all of his sixtysome
years, and it’s about damn time. Once a shoo-in for the burn-out side
of the standard rock equation, Pop changed course throughout most of
the past decade, choosing the reissue-and-rehash fade that makes the
cliché seem accurate. With Préliminaires, Pop
manages to sidestep the issue altogether. This is no fade, but it isn’t
incendiary either — “smolder” would be a good term. Jazzy and
mature, the record sounds like nothing Pop has ever done. There are
shades of mid-’90s French electro-pop (think Air’s The Virgin
Suicides) and a hell of a debt to Serge Gainsbourg. “King of
the Dogs” even swings with a steamy dose of Dixieland shuffle. Somehow,
Pop manages to make these his own, injecting the album with the weight
of his experience. As intelligent as the music is, there’s still an
element of the old Iggy to be found, particularly in the sometimes
childish lyrics — plenty of easy end rhymes and obvious
conclusions, with some of the offhand immediacy of Pop’s punk heyday.
What might seem silly and trite sung by a tenor is made profound by
Pop’s gravelly baritone. In casting off some of the trappings of Iggy,
Pop may just have found the same truth all over again. — Nicholas Hall
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2009.
