Last summer, I had the unexpected opportunity to see the reunited Stooges when my sister had an extra ticket to the Download Festival. She wanted to see the headliner, The Killers, as did most of the audience that day. While the Stooges show may not have lived up to all of my listens of Fun House, it was due mostly to horrible sound at one of those big-box outdoor amphitheaters where the people on the lawn are so far away that they need a giant movie screen just to see who’s performing. Still, it will always be memorable if only for seeing a shirtless Iggy Pop writhe near a bunch of A&F-wearing high schoolers who had jumped onstage. That concert proved to be a fortuitous opportunity as the reunion of Pop and Stooges founding guitarist Ron Asheton ended abruptly when Asheton died last January. I find hard to believe that Pop would stay away from aggressive guitar rock henceforth, but it doesn’t seem to be his only avenue of expression anymore, as evidenced by Préliminaires .
Préliminaires is one of those accidental albums, as a number of the songs were originally written for a documentary on French novelist Michel Houellebecq. “King of the Dogs” and “A Machine for Loving” are written about Fox, a dog from Houellebecq’s novel The Possibility of An Island. As such, they allowed Pop some leeway from his rock music tendencies. It seems that he enjoyed the opportunity to sing ballads and atmospheric songs, as he added a number of others to Préliminaires . The standard “Autumn Leaves” (recorded on Préliminaires in French as “Les Feuilles Mortes”) was included, as well as a cover of the Antonio Carlos Jobim tune “How Insensitive.” There are some tracks that veer towards rock, mainly “Nice to Be Dead” and “She’s a Business.” However, those are relatively mild compared to the proto-punk classics for which Pop is known. Pop, now 62, seems at ease with a relaxed jazz vibe, and his voice is surprisingly suited to these ballads. While he has never had the greatest range, the deep bass of his voice is pleasantly soothing when it wants to be, complete with subtle vibrato phrasing. This is most clearly shown on the meditative piano ballad “I Want to Go to the Beach.” Pop also busts out his best Serge Gainsbourg impression on “Les Feuilles Mortes,” and although the track does sound a bit too similar in its arrangement to Melody Nelson-era Gainsbourg, the fact remains that Pop’s voice is pretty convincing in its suave intonation (Pop’s French pronunciation isn’t quite as seamless). At the same time, the New Orleans-jazz-inflected “King of the Dogs” shows Pop trying on a gravely crooner hat like a less abrasive Tom Waits to wonderfully fun results. This song is one of the reasons to check out Préliminaires . It’s a winning track from a surprising formula: part Detroit punk attitude, part Louis Armstrong jazz (part of the melody is cribbed from “King of the Zulus”), and part French fiction.
Despite its charms, Préliminaires isn’t quite as good overall as you’d like it to be. Part of the problem comes from brevity and repetition. The album is very short, and yet two songs are repeated virtually identically—“Les Feuilles Mortes” starts the album and ends it, with the latter version featuring clarinet, and “Je Sais Que Tu Sais” is the same song as “She’s A Business” except that there’s a female singer cooing softly in French on the former track. A few of the other songs are less memorable, although relatively pleasant. The one clunker is “Party Time,” which features a clumsy synth line and precious little in the way of interesting structure. Some might say that this album only works as a curiosity because it’s sung by Iggy Pop, and there is a lot of truth to the idea that Préliminaires works mostly by playing against type. Even so, Pop may have stumbled onto a rewarding tangent. With a bit more complex and consistent songwriting, he really could turn out an exceptional balladeer album. While I, for one, do not want to see Iggy Pop entirely stop gyrating in front of teenagers and throwing himself around with abandon, it’s nice to see that the old dog has learned a few new tricks.
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