According to Marshall Bowden on, however, “When former Columbia stalwart Clive Davis found that Iggy had been signed to his fledgling label… he wouldn’t even commit to releasing the albums in the U.S.” Besides, the label had seen the commercial potential of punk artists come to fruition when one in its own ranks, Patti Smith, scored a hit with “Because the Night” in 1978. It seems reasonable, then, that Arista Records thought he had commercial potential when it inked a deal with him at the end of the decade. Cited as the “godfather of punk” by many significant artists of the day and riding high on the artistic triumph of his Bowie-produced albums, Iggy was finally starting to get his due. With the emergence of punk and the subsequent new wave record label feeding frenzy in the late 1970s, it seemed like the pioneering Pop’s time had finally come. The two 1977 comeback albums are still considered to be among Pop’s finest solo works, delivering such Pop gems as “Funtime”, “Nightclubbing”, “China Girl” (later covered by Bowie), “The Passenger”, and the ubiquitous “Lust for Life”. The two collaborated on the 1977 Bowie-produced comeback The Idiot, toured together (Bowie was Pop’s keyboard player), and released another collaboration, Lust for Life, later the same year.

After spending some time in a Los Angeles mental institution, Iggy reconnected with David Bowie, who had not only mixed Raw Power but had been largely responsible for getting it finished. As frontman for the Stooges in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he spit in the eye of the peace-and-love generation, laid the groundwork for punk, and made Detroit the capital of bad-ass America.īut the Stooges’ fiery music was too brutal for the general public and after the failure of Raw Power (which was supposed to be a comeback after two failed albums with Elektra) in 1973, Pop was on a drug-fueled downward spiral. Aside from the song “Lust for Life,” which has been used to sell just about every product known to mankind, Iggy Pop is probably best known for the dramatic highs and lows of his lengthy career.

Iggy pop soldier