The Idiot rides again. As the New York Times reports, Iggy Pop will be releasing a new album entitled Post Pop Depression on March 18 via Loma Vista. The album was produced by Queens of the Stone Age‘s Josh Homme, who also collaborated with Pop on the album’s composition. It’s the first solo rock LP from Pop since 2003’s Skull Ring.
“In American life, because it’s so hypercompetitive, what happens when you’re finally useless to everyone except hopefully not yourself?” Pop told the Times of the album’s thematic concerns. “What happens then? And can you continue to be of use to yourself? I had a kind of character in mind. It was sort of a cross between myself and a military veteran.”
If the combination of that world-weary viewpoint and the death of David Bowie—who produced Pop’s first two solo records, The Idiot and Lust for Life—has you suddenly reading that album title in a new light, you may not be entirely off track. Homme described the record as “a victory lap for a man who’s not sure if he won,” and Pop was apparently content hanging on the beach in Miami before, as the Times puts it, deciding to “make new music, for at least one more time.” Of course, we’re also talking about a guy whose last two releases were called Ready to Die and Après, so whether this is some kind of swan song or not is anyone’s guess.
Pop and Homme recorded the album with Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita and Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, and they’ll be joined on a very brief spring tour by QOTSA’s Troy Van Leeuwen and session player Matt Sweeney. Apparently, the group is targeting “venues, not cities,” meaning they’re looking for small theaters in places where someone like Iggy Pop tearing through town will be genuinely disruptive. Look out, Luckenbach.
Pop and Homme’s new band will make their debut tonight on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Post Pop Depression is out October 18 via Loma Vista.
(via Pitchfork)
