LUST FOR LIFE
“Lust for Life” is a 1977 song performed by Iggy Pop and co-written by David Bowie, featured on the album Lust for Life. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it #149 on their list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. (More from Wikipedia)
The last two cuts on the compilation CD Disorder by the Ugly come from their final performance in the winter of 1978, “Hey Little Girl” and “Lust for Life”. “Lust for Life” is the most accessible Iggy Pop song – sometimes misidentified as a Stooges song – and was co-written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie; remarkably, the song was used for several years as the theme song for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, starting right after Peggy and I had our honeymoon aboard one of their big ships.
(November 2011)
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But it wasn’t just the little guys; rock started to be seen as cool again in the larger world of popular music. In 2004, the Black Eyed Peas scored their first big hit song with “Let’s Get it Started” that seemed to be about equal parts rock and hip hop, instead of the amalgamation leaning heavily to one side or another. Rock bands started appearing regularly at country music awards shows. With rock music pretty much cut out of hit-oriented radio stations, hard rock music became the soundtrack for numerous television ads. One of the first that I remember was when Royal Caribbean Cruises used as their signature song “Lust for Life” by Iggy Pop, right after Peggy and I had our honeymoon on one of their ships in late 2003. I have been hearing one of my favorite Queens of the Stone Age songs backing a TV ad currently (for T-Mobile?).
(January 2013)
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By the time Kill City was finally released, Iggy Pop had already collaborated with David Bowie on two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. The title track of the latter album, “Lust for Life” was used as the theme song for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines for several years, beginning not long after Peggy and I had our honeymoon on one of their ships.
(December 2016)
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After the Stooges broke up in early 1974, and before his first post-Stooges tracks were finally released by Bomp! Records as Kill City under the name Iggy Pop and James Williamson, Iggy Pop continued the collaboration with David Bowie that he had begun on Raw Power with his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. Both are ranked 5 stars by Allmusic; the latter album includes what is probably Iggy Pop’s best known song, “Lust for Life” (it is sometimes mistaken for a Stooges song). He was working fast, with all three of these albums released in 1977; all told, Allmusic lists a remarkable 26 solo albums in the Iggy Pop name, not counting the Stooges albums or Kill City.
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In his Allmusic review of Lust for Life – featuring a smiling Iggy Pop on the front cover (unlike the fierce persona he presented on the Stooges album covers) – Mark Deming writes: “On The Idiot, Iggy Pop looked deep inside himself, trying to figure out how his life and his art had gone wrong in the past. But on Lust for Life, released less than a year later, Iggy decided it was time to kick up his heels, as he traded in the midtempo introspection of his first album and began rocking hard again. Musically, Lust for Life is a more aggressive set than The Idiot, largely thanks to drummer Hunt Sales and his bassist brother Tony Sales. The Sales [brothers] proved they were a world-class rhythm section, laying out power and spirit on the rollicking title cut [‘Lust for Life’], the tough groove of ‘Tonight’, and the lean neo-punk assault of ‘Neighborhood Threat’; and with guitarists Ricky Gardiner and Carlos Alomar at their side, they made for a tough, wiry rock & roll band – a far cry from the primal stomp of the Stooges, but capable of kicking Iggy back into high gear. . . . On Lust for Life, Iggy Pop managed to channel the aggressive power of his work with the Stooges with the intelligence and perception of The Idiot, and the result was the best of both worlds; smart, funny, edgy, and hard-rocking, Lust for Life is the best album of Iggy Pop’s solo career.”
(March 2017)
