Detroit, MI · punk · proto-punk

Iggy Pop

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The godfather, shirtless as ever — punk exists because of this man, and the Stooges songbook still hits like a dare.

Iggy Pop was born James Newell Osterberg Jr. in Muskegon, Michigan, on April 21, 1947. His father taught English and coached baseball at Fordson High School in Dearborn, and the family lived for a time in a trailer park in Ypsilanti.

Fronting the Stooges from the late 1960s, Pop built a reputation for confrontational shows despite the band's modest record sales at the time. He was among the first performers to stage-dive, an act he helped popularize, and his sets included rolling in broken glass and occasional self-mutilation, usually performed bare-chested. The Stooges' first three albums, The Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power, are now treated as foundational to punk.

Pop's collaboration with David Bowie began on the Stooges' Raw Power in 1973. Both later moved to West Berlin partly to escape drug habits, and there Pop recorded solo albums The Idiot and Lust for Life, both from 1977, usually supplying lyrics to Bowie's music. Songs from that period, 'Lust for Life', 'The Passenger' and 'China Girl', spread further through Bowie's own re-recordings, including 'China Girl' on 1983's Let's Dance.

Pop's only US top 40 hit came in 1990 with 'Candy', a duet with the B-52s' Kate Pierson. His influence has stretched across genres: Raw Power has been cited by the Sex Pistols, the Smiths and Nirvana, while The Idiot shaped post-punk and industrial acts including Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and Joy Division.

He reunited with the Stooges in the 2000s and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2010. NPR named him one of its 50 Great Voices, and in 2020 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his solo work. He has kept working steadily since, collaborating with artists from Josh Homme to jazz and electronic musicians.

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