I’m sure Jet have a place somewhere within the murky quagmire of Australian music. In fact, I’m quite certain of it. I just don’t know exactly where this place might be. Perhaps it’s better this way. It’s quite telling that in spite of their misappropriation of a genre, their hackneyed rock shtick and their oeuvre of vapid tunes they’ve deemed it necessary to assail us with yet another piece of derivative dross. They’re tenacious, if nothing else.
So, they’re back, only this time with the godfather of punk in tow. You would think that after heinously appropriating the bassline from Lust for Life they would tire of riding on Iggy Pop’s coat-tails. They haven’t. To make matters worse, they’ve been specifically chosen by some gormless fool to record a cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s The Wild One, a song indelibly etched into the consciousness of my generation by Pop himself (under the guise of Real Wild Child ).
And so it begins in the manner that it always does – with Nic Cester’s strangulated yawl – but this time it leads into interesting ‘70s-infused rock which somehow manages to pay homage to the genre rather than bastardise it. For the most part, their rendition remains rather faithful to the original, with the exceptions of Cester’s strained interjections – he screams with an irritating ferocity that is likely to induce hemorrhoids – and those sporadic spurts of bluesy rock.
Still, this does very little to redeem such a soulless and apathetic attempt at music-making. Iggy Pop’s input is perfunctory and it lacks the bravado and visceral energy of Real Wild Child. His voice is weak and unsteady and as a consequence he sounds more like Jim Osterberg, infirm pensioner, than the progenitor of proto punk.
I was once of the opinion that Iggy Pop could never err. His most prosaic efforts were continually applauded. Excuses were made. CDs were religiously purchased. He was lionised for who he was a lifetime ago rather than on the merits of his recent offerings.
Such blinkered idolatry is akin to rewarding a toddler for doing a poo in a potty instead of in their pants. At the end of the day, they’re both one and the same, and no matter how hard I rail against it, there’s simply no denying this one stark truth. Not even Iggy Pop can polish a turd.
