Iggy Pop, The Idiot (1977), "Mass Production". This industrial close to what is one of my favorite records, and has remained in rotation for over thirty years. The panels parsed the lyrics, though I'm not sure I could defend the Soap Strip angle on the Freeway line. Still, even though the strip doesn't meet it's own rules, I feel this one works really well. But maybe I just love Berlin-era Pop and Bowie.
"And since you gotta go, won't you do me favor? ...she's almost like you, and I'm almost like him."
There's something about Pop's honesty in The Idiot and Lust For Life that speaks to me. Here he takes the principal of mass production, the idea that we can have the same hamburger again and again, and hints at its resonant dehumanizing effect, and emits his plaintive cry of want. He wants a specific connection, but cannot have it...so he'll settle for a 'close enough.' All of human endeavor now reduced to a series of fast food chain choices, each the same, each close enough.
Iggy Pop, The Idiot (1977), "Mass Production". This industrial close to what is one of my favorite records, and has remained in rotation for over thirty years. The panels parsed the lyrics, though I'm not sure I could defend the Soap Strip angle on the Freeway line. Still, even though the strip doesn't meet it's own rules, I feel this one works really well. But maybe I just love Berlin-era Pop and Bowie.
ReplyDelete"And since you gotta go, won't you do me favor? ...she's almost like you, and I'm almost like him."
There's something about Pop's honesty in The Idiot and Lust For Life that speaks to me. Here he takes the principal of mass production, the idea that we can have the same hamburger again and again, and hints at its resonant dehumanizing effect, and emits his plaintive cry of want. He wants a specific connection, but cannot have it...so he'll settle for a 'close enough.' All of human endeavor now reduced to a series of fast food chain choices, each the same, each close enough.