Diane: "Iggy Pop? I mean the guy’s dead anyway."
Renton: "He’s not dead! He toured last year, Tommy went to see him!"
—Trainspotting, 1996
If you had told a music fan in 1976 that Iggy Pop would outlive David Bowie, they’d probably have laughed. And yet here we are, in the already-quite-strange 2016: With tributes to Bowie mounting in the wake of his death last month from cancer, Iggy Pop has announced a new album, Post Pop Depression, recorded in secret with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and to be released March 18.
The timing was eerie. Of all the careers Bowie helped start or restart—Lou Reed, Luther Vandross, Stevie Ray Vaughan—no one benefited from his touch quite as much as Iggy Pop. Pop has spoken at length about the degree to which Bowie propped up his failing career in the late '70s, co-writing and recording Pop’s two first (and still most critically beloved) solo records, The Idiot and Lust for Life. "Basically this guy salvaged me from certain professional and maybe personal annihilation—he resurrected me," he told the New York Times.
However, while Bowie may have extended Pop's lifespan, his true resurrection came later, with the release of Trainspotting, a film that amazingly (disturbingly?) came out 20 years ago this month. Bowie’s influence may have helped keep Iggy Pop alive, but it’s possible that Trainspotting made him immortal.
Trainspotting was not only a fresh and exhilarating film for the times but one of great cultural significance, bringing widespread visibility to the rise of heroin, club culture, and the growing pains of uncertain Generation Xers as they peered into a confusing future. It also celebrated music more than most, weaving a rich selection of the best contemporary Britpop and club music alongside those genres’ forebearers from the '70s and '80s. Amidst it all, Pop’s music was front and center, embedded directly into the film’s meaning, and his real-life character played an important role in the plot: He was the hedonistic junkie hero who kept on ticking, and whose idol worship was worthy enough to justify letting go of relationships and, ultimately, the theoretical rubbish of modern life.
And God, that epic opening scene:
The way director Danny Boyle uses Pop’s "Lust for Life" to kickstart his film is still a kinetic marvel to watch: Those thundering drums mirroring the running feet of Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner, the lyrics still audible underneath the famous "Choose life" monologue. It is a uniquely perfect opening, and it put Iggy Pop and "Lust for Life" front and center in the minds of people across the world.
Bowie’s influence may have helped kept Iggy Pop alive, but it’s possible that Trainspotting made him immortal.
How much did Trainspotting change Pop's standing? Art Collins, Pop’s former manager, told the Times in August 1996 that he had already had more than 20 requests to use Iggy Pop music in movie soundtracks that year, within six months of the film’s release. "I think it's because people who were his fans, and were once sort of ashamed to admit it, have grown up," he says. "And now they run ad agencies and movie studios." This turned out to be even more true than Collins probably imagined, leading to a canonical Onion article and a baffling 2005 TV commercial using "Lust for Life" to sell family-friendly Royal Caribbean Cruises. (Critics and the general public alike have called it "the worst ad song ever." As one Slate reader noted, "Nothing says maritime comfort like a song about shooting up junk," right?)
Iggy Pop wasn’t the only musician whose career benefited greatly from the film. The expertly crafted soundtrack played perfectly into the new legend-building of Pop (and Bowie, for that matter), serving as a Bible-of-cool for teens and twenty-somethings in those pre-Internet days. As an aching upstate-nowhere American teenager desperate for knowledge and inspiration, I was in love with the film before I even saw it. I had to fight with my mom to go (end compromise: I went with my mom), and the movie ignited a small fire in my heart. Enter the soundtrack.
It’s easy to forget today, now that Internet discovery has become an instinctive brain-to-finger-to-screen action, but film soundtracks in the '90s played a massive role in tastemaking—think Empire Records, "My So-Called Life," and Lost Highway, and what those soundtracks did for Edwyn Collins, Juliana Hatfield, and well, David Bowie, respectively. But the Trainspotting OST went beyond that, serving simultaneously as a trendsetter, a historical guide, and simply a well-sequenced mix. The OST was the first point of contact for millions of American teenagers like me for Britpop artists like Blur, Elastica, Sleeper, and Pulp; club acts like Underworld, Primal Scream, and others; '80s heroes like New Order and Blondie (via a Sleeper cover). For that, I’ll forever be grateful. Below, a look back at some moments from the OST that blew my teenaged mind, and presumably millions of others.
Pulp: "Mile End"
God, this song. For how much focus was placed on Pop or, to a lesser extent, Underworld (with their classic "Born Slippy.NUXX"), it’s almost criminal that buried within the OST is this track, the second best song Pulp ever made. A powerful and narrative about living on the skids in East London, it’s delicate, melodic, and perverse in a way Jarvis has never surpassed. Just an all-time classic.
New Order: "Temptation"
Though less well-known than "Blue Monday" or "Bizarre Love Triangle," "Temptation" manages to capture perfectly in one joyous seven-minute blast every great thing that New Order has ever been. "Temptation" was originally released in two different versions as singles in 1982, but neither are this one, a 1987 re-recording for the Substance comp that bests both without question.
Brian Eno: "Deep Blue Day"
This song will be forever remembered for many as the music that plays during Renton’s surrealistic climb into the "worst toilet in Scotland" (or on Earth) to find the unused skag he accidentally shat out. For me, I remember being bewildered when I first heard this track on the soundtrack, as it felt more like film score than an actual song; little did I know that I would years later learn and obsess more over this Eno fellow and his atmospheric twinklings than any other artist on this soundtrack.
Sadly, like many soundtracks, Trainspotting's OST isn’t available on Spotify, but I’ve cobbled together my own playlist version for you here, which has everything except the lovely Damon Albarn closer "Closet Romantic" and uses one of the other versions of "Temptation":