Iggy Pop - Préliminaires (2009)

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"I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars," Iggy Pop said recently, perhaps obliquely referencing last year's vapid Stooges reunion album, The Weirdness. Either way, this is a major volte face. Out go guitars (mostly). In come wistful saxophones, old New Orleans jazz and music made to waft through a fog of Gitanes smoke in some forgotten European bar. Préliminaires is inspired by French writer Michel Houellebecq's book The Possibility of an Island, which enables Iggy to sing in French, tell stories and expand on the theme of escape - especially escape from himself. The old Iggy makes fleeting appearances on rocker Nice to Be Dead, but otherwise he is beautifully fatigued and insightful. On lines such as "You can convince the world that you're some kind of superstar, when an asshole is all you are, but that's all right," he sounds simultaneously invulnerable and immortal. This may be his best album since 1977's Lust for Life. - Dave Simpson - The Guardian