Album Review- Iggy Pop- Every Loser

I feel like the last two thirds of Iggy Pop’s 50plus year career has been “comeback”s. Maybe that is the way it works for any long time artist. He has had some high points of course. 1993s American Caesar and 2016s Post Pop Depression felt like late career capstones. 2023’s Every Loser feels every bit of a marker of where Iggy is going next. I have read a few reviews that suggest that it’s every aspect of Iggy’s career covered in one album. It’s certainly more catchy than 2019’s Free- a Pop into poetry, jazz and atmospheric introspection. In many ways, it’s hard not to compare Every Loser to 1990s Brick by Brick. That album paired Iggy with a big time producer (Don Was) and a bunch of stars- Slash and Duff from Guns N Roses, John Hiatt, Kate Pierson, Waddy Wachtel and Kenny Aronoff. Every Loser is produced by Andrew Watt (Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Ozzy Osbourne, Eddie Vedder) and features an all star list of rockers- Dave Navarro, Eric Avery, Stone Gossard, Taylor Hawkins, Travis Barker, Josh Klinghoffer and once again, Duff McKagan Iggy has done the rock star cameo thing before with 2003s Skull Ring with Green Day, Sum 41, and Peaches. Though there are as many opinions as fans, I consider Skull Ring one to skip. Every Loser does have some of that “big, dumb” rock that Iggy is known for, but Watt generally knows what to do here. There’s no great single on par with the best songs off Brick by Brick but the album holds together. Opener “Frenzy” and “Modern Day Ripoff” get closest to the mark as the kind of rocker Iggy made in the 1980s. If anything, the album reminds me of 1999s Avenue B. Not necessarily sonically- though it does at times share some characteristics of introspection and occasionally slowing down especially on songs like “Morning Show” and those two tracks labeled as “interludes” But Avenue B was an album that at first few listens felt like it would be one of Iggy’s better albums, but it didn’t really hold over too much over time. I doubt Every Loser will float to the top either. Watt is a positive but also a bit of a negative too. If Iggy really wanted to shake some listeners, he is a bit polished here. Closer “Regency” is the most discussed song here and it probably should be, as it feels like what the album is building to. It’s also a pretty good example of the album. It is very ambitious, and yet feels like it falls short. It’s full of profanity. Musically, it is the closest to 80s and 90s Iggy, which is notable considering some of his recent detours. Neither the song nor the album are the type of quality that gets mentioned in the obituary. Yet, that isn’t to say it’s not a good album. Album tracks like “Strung Out Johnny” and “Comments” are amazingly strong despite some pretty overused lyric fodder - hard drugs and social media.