Iggy Pop Plays Favorite Bowie Songs on Two-Hour Radio Tribute
Iggy Pop spun a two hour set honoring his late friend and frequent collaborator, David Bowie, on the latest episode of his BBC 6 radio show, “Iggy Confidential.”
The playlist opened with Lodger‘s “Boys Keep Swinging” and featured tracks from throughout Bowie’s career, with a special focus on deep cuts. “The way I chose them was from memory,” Pop said of his song selection. “I took out a piece of paper and a pen and closed my eyes and just remembered what I liked at different times … I’m weighing things that are a little more low on the totem pole, but not obscure.”
Pop also peppered the show with an array of anecdotes. Among other things, he discussed the strange scene at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles where Bowie made Station to Station; the time he ate hamburgers in Berlin at 1 a.m. with Bowie and Frank Zappa; and the master bedroom at the Château d’Hérouville in France that might have inspired the “Blue, blue, electric blue / That’s the color of my room” line from “Sound and Vision.” (After playing “The Prettiest Star,” which features Marc Bolan on guitar, Pop told a bonus story about going to a T. Rex show where Bolan made the opening band perform in front of a massive cardboard cut out of himself.)
The full episode of “Iggy Confidential” is available to stream until August 28th, and a complete playlist is also available on the show’s website. The episode is part of a larger BBC tribute to Bowie, which included a concert at Royal Albert Hall this weekend that featured performances from John Cale, Amanda Palmer, Marc Almond and more.