Préliminaires is the fifteenth studio album by American rock singer Iggy Pop, released in Europe on May 25, 2009 by record label Astralwerks, and in the US on June 2. It was inspired by the singer's reading of Michel Houellebecq's novel "La Possibilité d'une île" ("The Possibility of an Island").
Style.
Unlike his previous works, the album is less rock-oriented and was said by Pop to be a "quieter album with some jazz overtones" with its sound influenced by New Orleans jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. Pop also admitted that the album is his response to being "sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music".
The album includes a cover of the 1940s French jazz standard "Les feuilles mortes" ("Autumn Leaves"), which Pop sings in French. The song is most associated with such artists as Yves Montand and Édith Piaf. The album also includes "How Insensitive", a jazzy bossa nova standard composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim, and "Nice to Be Dead", more of a swamp rock song.
The visuals for the album were created by French-Iranian graphic novelist and animated film director Marjane Satrapi. Marjane and Pop met when she asked him to voice one of the characters in the English-language version of her Academy-award nominated movie "Persepolis" in 2007.
"Rolling Stone" called it "definitely the weirdest record of the punk godfather's career".
Reception.
The album received a Metacritic score of 66 based on 27 reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews.
It debuted at No. 187 on the "Billboard" 200, selling around 3,000 copies on its first week of release. "Preliminaires" has sold 10,000 copies in the United States as of February 2016.
Personnel.
"King of the Dogs" contains elements of "King of the Zulus" written by Lillian Hardin Armstrong
References.
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