3 Bands That Iggy Pop Is Obsessed With

Iggy Pop is a proto-punk legend. And like all musical legends, he was inspired by quite a few musicians who came before him and after him. Let’s take a look at a few bands that Iggy Pop said were some of his favorites. A few of these entries might just shock you, considering how different they are from ol’ Pop himself.

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1. Tinariwen

This one was pretty shocking to hear about, but it’s nonetheless understandable to anyone who enjoys the gorgeous music of Tinariwen. A few years back, Iggy Pop proudly listed Tinariwen as one of his top favorite bands, with quotes sourced from his BBC 6 Music radio show, The Nitty Gritty.

Tinariwen is a Saharan world band that has been around for decades, and they beautifully blend the traditional sounds of Tuareg music with the west’s brand of rock music.

“That’s my favourite group!” Iggy Pop said of the band. “That to me is the kind of music that can only develop when there’s a lot of space and time and not a bunch of junk stuff getting in the way. […] That music just feels naturally right.”

2. Joy Division

Every punk rocker out there has at least some affection for the short-lived but massively influential post-punk outfit Joy Division. Iggy Pop is a pretty big fan of the outfit, and he often plays their music on his radio show. During Pop’s time in Berlin in the 1970s, he listened to quite a bit of Joy Division.

“These songs are so great,” said Pop. “I heard this stuff when I was living in Berlin in the 70s and I was just mighty, mighty impressed. This is fine art, and that’s about all I can say about it. On top of all of its other virtues, these are moral songs, and those are very difficult to write.”

3. Boris

Fans of Japanese experimental rock likely already know all about this particular entry. Boris has been producing sludgey, noisey, psychedelic tunes since the early 1990s. And Pop is quite the fan of this outfit.

“They’re from Japan and have managed to throw away the conventions that didn’t suit them in terms of expressing what they imagined,” said Pop.

4. Savages

Joy Division is just one post-punk outfit that Iggy Pop loves, and another entry on our list of bands includes Savages. This British post-punk revival outfit isn’t an old band, either. They were together from 2011 to 2017 and yielded just two studio albums.

“It starts out with a rap that is true and kind of concerned and angry about not being able to get down to hearing yourself think, to what’s important, because there’s just so much crap being thrown at everybody in the modern media society,” said Pop of the Savages song “Shut Up”. “These are ladies in the group and they are very good. I had the privilege to play on a bill with them at Royal Festival Hall last year and they were mighty fine at what they did.”

Photo by Rob Baker Ashton, courtesy of BBgun Publicity

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