An American singer born in 1947 and a founding figure of punk with the Stooges, Iggy Pop owes to Montreux the best-selling album of his career. In April and May 1986, after four years without a record, he cut “Blah-Blah-Blah” at Mountain Studios, produced by his old accomplice David Bowie and by the in-house engineer David Richards. That record, the most openly commercial he ever made, would also be the last collaboration between the two men.
Iggy Pop in Montreux: the record that put him back on his feet
Four years of silence
By the mid-1980s, Iggy Pop had released nothing for four years. The godfather of punk, whose influence was immense, was not selling records.
It was David Bowie who offered to help. The two men had known each other since Berlin: Bowie had produced “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life” in 1977, two albums that became classics. This time the project was different, the aim was deliberately to write a record that would sell.
At Mountain Studios, with Bowie and Richards
The album was recorded in Montreux, at Mountain Studios, in late April and May 1986. Bowie produced it with David Richards, the in-house engineer who had been running the studio desk since the age of twenty-one.
One major difference from the Berlin albums: this time Bowie played no instruments at all. He confined himself to producing and adding backing vocals. Three tracks were co-written with Steve Jones, the former Sex Pistols guitarist, and the record contains a cover of “Wild One” by the Australian Johnny O’Keefe, retitled “Real Wild Child (Wild One)”.
The success, and the last time
“Blah-Blah-Blah” came out in September 1986 on A&M. It is Iggy Pop’s seventh studio album, and by far his greatest commercial success.
It is also the last time he and Bowie worked together. Their collaboration, begun ten years earlier in Berlin, closed in a studio on the shore of Lake Geneva, the same one where Bowie had recorded “Lodger” and improvised “Under Pressure” with Queen.
The third time on stage
Iggy Pop did not merely pass through the Montreux studio: he played the festival. On 6 July 2023, at the Auditorium Stravinski, he gave his third concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival, for its 57th edition.
The cover of “Iggy Pop, Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2023”.Iggy Pop on the Montreux Jazz Festival stage, in 2023.
He was seventy-six, had just released the album “Every Loser”, and appeared before a sold-out hall backed by a seven-piece band. The set ranged across his whole career, from the Stooges to the Berlin records “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life”.
The concert was released as “Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2023”. Iggy Pop has said that the Auditorium Stravinski ranks for him among the halls that mark a career, alongside Carnegie Hall or the Sydney Opera House.
One night at l’Usine, in Geneva
The documentary “David Bowie’s Secret Friend” recalls that Iggy Pop, Bowie’s friend and artistic accomplice, also came to French-speaking Switzerland. One evening he went up on stage at l’Usine, in Geneva, to sing with Sandro Sursock’s band (watson ↗).
The heart of the festival since 1993: under one roof, the Auditorium Stravinski and the halls that host half the history of music every summer.
Music recorded in Montreux
1986
Blah Blah Blah
Produced by David Bowie and David Richards at Mountain Studios, the album of Iggy Pop’s great comeback, carried by the hit “Real Wild Child”. The Iguana and Bowie, partners in crime from Berlin, reunited in Montreux.
