Iggy Pop – Kill City Review

Released after the boom of interest in Iggy Pop as a solo artist, but recorded long before it seemed like he had a chance, Kill City is a tricky project. It certainly stands up well so many decades on from its conception, but it being released just a year after the success of Lust for Life and The Idiot feels like it’s riding the coattails of other, better projects. Kill City tries and fails to pull Pop back to the immediate, post-Stooges feeling. All fine and well, given it was recorded during such a time, but with the context of what it does for Pop just a year on from his two outstanding, David Bowie-featuring solo albums, it’s hard to see how Kill City aligns with what Pop was wanting to do through the 1980s. Even then, Kill City is remarkable in places. What it loses in focus across the tracklist it more than makes up for with the sound it provided Pop at the time, one he would lose soon after recording and regain after the delayed release.  

Without the context of when it was released or how it took years for anyone to take the project on, it’s an excellent continuation of those punk thrills Pop would often return to in the years to come, possibly because of Kill City releasing later than intended. Two years is not a long time, but it’s time enough for a complete change of tone and style in music. Kill City is not entirely removed from the likes of Lust for Life or Nightclubbing in its moody intent and suggestive, Pop brilliance. There are the more obvious comments made, like on the title track where Pop refers to himself as a “wild boy”. Any performer covering themselves in peanut butter before launching themselves across the stage does have the right to call themselves that. But they must also contend with having to break off from that experience and find depths beneath it.  

Beyond the Law does just that. Argumentative-sounding work from Pop who claims not to stand for anything. He did, and still does, though. Kill City tries to break down the image of Pop as a purveyor of counterculture elements but, because of when it was released, feels more like a sly dig at his dwindling relevancy in a post-Stooges world. It’s incredible material, even if there is a bit of an imbalance later in the album. An instrumental stop-off with Night Theme feels quite unlike anything Pop had done at the time, or has done ever since. It’s a moment of contemplation from an unruly on-stage persona. Kill City does much to redefine Pop not because it strips back the menace of his provocative style, but because it gives it a cleaned-up sound. Having the reprise right after is not quite “fighting bikers after a forty-five-minute cover of Louie Louie” levels of provocative, but the sentiment is there.  

Sentiment is everything for Kill City, but that provocative nature is lost in the mix somewhat with lighter-sounding efforts such as Consolation Prizes. A relatively patchy album but wholly enjoyable, that latter part is most important of all. Blues-sounding tracks which never quite land brilliantly but are enough to revel in the joys of. Lucky Monkeys, for instance, feels so far removed from what Pop had done with Lust for Life and what would follow with New Values and beyond, but it’s nice to hear Kill City in that Mick Jagger period of influence. Kill City is not without merit, it paints a picture of Pop at the time and how out of step he was with, perhaps, what the rock and roll and even punk scenes were then offering. He would catch up soon afterwards, but there are a few moments of real joy to be found across this one.