Blah-Blah-Blah (Iggy Pop album)


Blah-Blah-Blah is the seventh studio album by Iggy Pop. Originally released in October 1986, on the label A&M, it remains his most commercially successful album to date. Blah-Blah-Blah appeared after a four-year hiatus for Pop, with David Bowie serving as his prime collaborator. It would be their final collaboration. A successful tour followed the album's release.

Production

The collection included a cover of Johnny O'Keefe's "Wild One" " and three original songs co-written with ex-Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. The remaining tracks were co-written by Bowie, who also produced the album with David Richards but, unlike his previous work with Pop, The Idiot and Lust for Life, did not play any instruments. Bowie biographer David Buckley has reported that Pop "virtually disowned" the record, calling it "a Bowie album in all but name". It has never been specified what tracks on the album, if any, originated during the sessions of Bowie's 1984 album Tonight.

Release and reception

Described by AllMusic as "the most calculatedly commercial album of Iggy's career", Blah-Blah-Blah was certified gold in Canada. In the U.S. it peaked at No. 75 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart. Rolling Stones contemporary review complained of a "nagging homogeneity to side one" but continued that "even at its most familiar, Blah-Blah-Blah is as spiritually outraged and emotionally direct as commercial pop gets these days".

Singles

"Real Wild Child" reached No. 27 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock charts and became Pop's first Top 10 hit in the UK. The song was featured on the soundtrack for the 1988 film Crocodile Dundee II and the 1990 film Pretty Woman, also both Problem Child films and has been the opening theme of the Australian ABC TV music block rage by using snipets along with Johnny O’Keefe’s “ Wild One”since its launch in 1987. Other singles and videos from the album included "Cry for Love", "Isolation" and "Shades". "Cry for Love", described by Rolling Stone as "a ripping fusion of classic Iggy rage, Bowie cabaret and unexpected romantic vulnerability", made No. 19 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music chart and No. 34 on the Mainstream Rock charts.

Track listing

Alternate versions and remixes

There are demo versions of some songs in circulation online. "Fire Girl" features David Bowie's backing vocals far more audible than in the album.

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.
Production