Iggy Pop: Is Punk's Raging Godfather Turning Into Modern-Day Rock's Weird Uncle?

Published at 3:30 PM on September 8, 2009

By Justin Jacobs

Iggy Pop: Is Punk's Raging Godfather Turning Into Modern-Day Rock's Weird Uncle?

Iggy Pop's long been the Godfather of Punk.

But recently he's been resembling a real godfather. Not the "Offer you can't refuse"-type, but the real-life, older-dude figure who watches out for you and, in my case, gives you silver dollars at family functions for no apparent reason.

For Iggy, those silver dollars pay dividends in the form of guest spots on the tunes of some today's hottest young rockers.

Maybe it was Iggy's cameos as a grumpy dad on the marvelous Adventures of Pete and Pete in the '90s (he totally calls one neighborhood kid a "stooge," har har) but the 62-year-old Pop really does bring to mind a curmudgeonly uncle—which makes his appearance on Jemina Pearl's "I Hate People" pretty fitting. His pulsing track "Kick It" with Peaches was oversexed and silly, and that was the point.

But his duet vocals on Ida Maria's punchy "Oh My God" spreads his vocal chods a little thin. Pop actually sings lyrics about Maria ("Put a price, put a price on her soul") in a voice that sounds a little something like Vincent Price gone rock 'n' roll. This hasn't been Iggy's first misstep meddling with a generation not his own, either; his tune "Little Know It All" featured Sum 41 and sounded, unfortunately, like Sum 41.

Pop is by no means a wash-up (his most recent Preliminaires got some praiseworthy reviews), but it might be time to step back and let the kids have their fun. Then again, maybe this kind of fun is the exact reason why he's working with them in the first place. While we await the inevitable announcement of his next collaboration, take a gander at a glorious moment from the aforementioned episode of Pete and Pete: