Take a good look at the front cover of Soldier. How Iggy Pop looks is how you’ll feel after this one is over. Whether it’s because of the off-putting sound and style of opening track Loco Mosquito or because Pop had been trying and failing to shoehorn himself into new wave styles in the years leading up to this, who knows? He has a jumpy, jolty style to Soldier that doesn’t quite work with the lyrical complacency at hand. It’s hard not to have fun with it all, but it leaves a fair bit to be desired. So too does a lot of Pop’s post The Idiot discography, though, and it’s about finding the smaller parts of his work, siphoning those off into a different playlist, and accepting a good chunk is just vapid. Loco Mosquito is just that. He has an energy to burn, but is letting all the wrong people tap it. Soldier has the wrong people around Pop, whose sound is a blowout of those punk and new wave stylings.
A few successes can be found within Soldier, though. It’s worth slogging through for early thrills like Ambition. Opiates and oddities are what spur on the best of Pop and it’s no surprise that this is a song of real quality. When Pop sounds autobiographical, or at least interested in what he’s singing about, that’s when Soldier comes to life. A song like Knocking ‘Em Down (In the City) does very little but provide another example of competent punk instrumental stylings. Chanting for the opening of Play It Safe, as brief as it is, lines up with the title. It’s the droning guitar that works best of all, and the wilder lyrics where Pop speaks from the perspective of a man in touch with General Eisenhower. It’s interesting, sure, but not exactly a song you’ll want to return to. Pop tries to paint a wholly intense picture of himself with songs like Get Up and Get Out and Mr. Dynamite but it never quite lands as well as it should.
Much of that is an issue with the writing and erratic instrumentals. Neither feels as though it has a solid basis for Pop’s attempted push into the 1980s. Dog Food is as rancid an experience as the title would suggest. Some of the worst lyrics Pop has put out there and a failed desire to recapture the peanut butter-covered punk of his time in The Stooges. I Need More is at hand to salvage the poor form of Dog Food, though it’s far too late for Pop to call for truth and intelligence as he does on I Need More when he can offer neither himself across Soldier. At least songwriters like Glen Matlock are lending a hand, and you can tell when they’re present because the songs are listenable and evoke at least some stylish interest.
Pop is certainly an international garbage man, as he calls himself on Take Care of Me. He is throwing out the absolute lowest points of his work as a songwriter on Soldier, a relatively miserable experience that feels like the Lust for Life hitmaker is playing catch-up. Scant few moments of real interest are found on Soldier, though the little flickers of life heard on the likes of Take Care of Me are at least, to some degree, sincere. Misfires like I’m a Conservative are tucked away towards the end of the album, presumably because those who made it through that far will listen to just about anything. Soldier feels a bit aimless. It struggles to make much of a go of anything but some tedious stock for future shows. That’s all Pop can muster here.
