How can a man thats ingested that many drugs look so ripped at the age of 65. I mean look at Keith Richards, legendary as he is the old boy can barely structure a sentance. Where as Keith is as likely to fall off his perch as he is to fall out of another cocoanut tree, Iggy is going to outlive us all. A walking pharmaceutical experiment through most of the '70s Iggy has a constitution of steel and still has muscles that makes the British gymnastics team look like a bunch of pussies. And he still has time to sell reasonably priced car insurance too. What a guy!
During the drug-addled '70s Pop was really under the patronage of David Bowie. It was 'Our David' who helped bring The Stooges back together to record the classic Raw Power album which he also produced. It was David who took Iggy to Germany to write and record his first two solo albums, The Idiot and LUST FOR LIFE. It was also David who visited Pop at the Los Angeles mental institute where Iggy had admitted himself for drug addiction. Bowie kindly taking his friend wraps of cocaine to keep his spirits up.
LUST FOR LIFE is the second of the solo Pop and Bowie collaborations. Jut as with Pop's first solo album, The Idiot, and Bowie's own Low and "Heroes" it was produced at West Germany's Hansa Studios. Incredibly it was written, recorded and mixed in just eight days, reflected by its loose and raw production. Bowie wrote the music for seven of the nine songs with Iggy providing lyrics. That said it sounds more like an 'Iggy record' than The Idiot which was definitely an experimental Bowie album.
LUST FOR LIFE contains two of Pop's best known tracks. 'The Passenger' is supposed to be inspired by a Jim Morrison poem that sees "modern life as a journey by car". That's Bowie you can hear singing the "la, la, la's". It also features the energised anthem 'Lust For Life' which was Iggy's announcement to the world that he had decided to 'choose life'. Other standouts are 'Sixteen', the only track entirely Pop's own. It's a garage rock stomp that could have appeared on any of The Stooges records. 'Success' is swaggering Stones-like bar-room rock n roll with a call and response verses. My favourite though is 'Fall In Love With Me' the final and longest track on the album which is a loose trance-like jam of bass drums, guitar and hammond organ not dissimilar sounding to tracks off The Horror's last album.
I think most of us if a certain age know the title tune probably due to the opening scenes of Trainspotting, the track now being indelibly linked to Renton steaming through Edinburgh's streets. It's a great album from start to finish though and definitely worth checking out. I love it.
'LUST FOR LIFE'
'SUCCESS'
'SIXTEEN'
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