Song of the Day: Iggy Pop - Break Into Your Heart

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Break Into Your Heart” by Iggy Pop from his 2016 album, Post Pop Depression, on Loma Vista Recordings / Concord.

Iggy Pop - Break Into Your Heart (MP3)

Iggy Pop didn't invent punk rock, but perhaps more than any other musician, his restless spirit and uninhabited stage presence molded what the genre would become. Originally best known as the frontman for the Detroit rock band The Stooges, the man once called James Newell Osterberg, Jr. was a legendarily wild figure onstage, a completely accurate reputation that still follows him to this day. After the demise of The Stooges, Pop embarked to Berlin to begin his solo career, which began with two esteemed albums created in collaboration with David Bowie, 1977's The Idiot and Lust For Life. Pop would continue his solo career for the next three decades before reuniting with The Stooges, but with the release of his latest album, this year's Post Pop Depression, the icon has implied he's done with recording for the foreseeable future. If this is indeed the case, Post Pop Depression is a worthy swan song. Produced and written in collaboration with Josh Homme, the album has an air of finality to it, albeit one imbued with Homme's trademark shadowy desert groove, which is front and center on "Break Into Your Heart". Iggy winds around Homme's sinewy blues riff, his growing vocals slithering around drummer Matt Helders's lock-tight rhythm. "Break Into Your Heart" may seem like a love song at first listen, but it's a tune of last grasps, a soundtrack to Iggy reaching out for one last chance at greatness. If that sounds desperate, it's because it's coming from a man whose closest collaborators and friends have mostly passed on. Iggy will join them one day – his acknowledgment of this is the underlying theme of Post Pop Depression – but not before he cranks out one final mission statement, which he does sublimely here.

Iggy finishes the Post Pop Depression tour later this spring (read our review of opening night in Seattle here), and he has a few solo dates in Europe this summer. Keep up with him on Facebook and Twitter, and watch KEXP's tribute to Iggy Pop and the Stooges live from the Pike Place Market.