Occasional Albums Thing 054 - Iggy Pop “Blah-Blah-Blah”

Upon, earlier this year, reading Chris O’Leary’s excellent books “Rebel Rebel” and “Ashes To Ashes” which detail all the songs David Bowie has been involved in writing and recording (based on O’Leary’s website “Pushing Ahead Of the Dame”) I discovered that the Dame had been closely involved with the writing and recording of this album and it went onto my wantlist.

When Bowie recorded what he reffered to as his “Phill Collins yeas” albums (“Let’s Dance”, “Tonight” and the best forgotten “Never Let Me Down”) he recorded versions of a number of songs he’d written with Iggy Pop during their Berlin years, “China Girl”, “Tonight” and "Neighbourhood Threat” alongside Iggy’s songs “Don’t Look Down” and “Bang Bang”. Now it appears that Bowie did this as a “thank you” to Iggy and because he’d heard that his friend was somewhat on his uppers. Despite the ensuing royalties that would no doubt have been funneled Iggy’s way (“China Girl” at least was a huge International hit) he was, it seems, less than pleased that Bowie had done this. In order to placate his pal, Bowie agreed to write and record an album with him and “Blah-Blah-Blah” was the result.

Five of the nine songs included are Pop/Bowie co-writes. Of the other 4 songs, 3 were written with former Sex Pistol Steve Jones and the last is a cover version. The core band are two of Bowie’s musicians of the time, Kevin Armstrong on guitar and Erdal Kizilcay looking after drums, bass and keyboards, in fact almost any instrument which is how Bowie used Kizilcay when making demos, as a one man band. Using him on an entire album, as they were self financing and doing it on the cheap (Iggy didn’t have a record deal at the time), not such a great idea. 

Now, outside of anything else about this record one thing that really bugs me is the (now) dated 80’s production with the booming drums overpowering practically everything else in the mix. Reportedly before commencing recording Bowie and co-producer David Richards went through a stack of albums looking for a drum sound they liked and settled on Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” and PiL’s “Album”, neither of which (to my ears) feature drums as obtrusive as "Blah-Blah-Blah"s. Also, with those two albums, Springsteen had “Mighty” Max Weinberg and PiL producer Bill Laswell had Ginger Baker and top session men in New York, somewhat better tub thumpers than the limited Mr Kizilcay. Oh, Bowie and Richards also had  a Linn drum machine borrowed from Queen’s Roger Taylor  which results in all the drums sounding like a cheap drum machine ! 

Now as Bowie made probably his greatest record of the 1980’s right before this one (“Absolute Beginners”) you have to wonder what he was thinking as he went into these sessions ? Bowie (sadly) seemed to use this as a test run for “Never Let Me Down” which means you do (as I have before) have to question his judgement/reasons during this period.

The other thing that both “Born In The USA” and “Album” have that “Blah-Blah-Blah” doesn’t is great songs. The Pop/Bowie collaborations here are lacklustre at most. The two best tracks on the album are the singles, the Steve Jones co-write “Cry For Love” and the cover version “Real Wild Child (Wild One)”, the latter originally titled simply “Wild One” and written by 3 Australian songwriters, serving up a hit down under in 1958 for singer Johnny O’Keefe (Australia's first charting Rock 'n' Roll record trivia fans). You may also remember Iggy’s version was heavily featured in the movie “Crocodile Dundee II”, reaching #1 itself in the Australian singles chart in 1986.

And that’s it really. It all just kinda washes over you in an avalanche of ridiculous 80’s drum overkill. A shame really as Iggy and Bowie had produced some genuinely great stuff together during the “Berlin years”. File next to “never let the Phil Collins years get you down”…

Cry For Love - https://youtu.be/9LMwqOMTl0M?si=9lYDGWBtFClPYM54