Mass production (also flow production, repetitive flow production, series production, or serial production) is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. The concepts of mass production are applied to various kinds of products, from fluids and particulates handled in bulk (such as food, fuel, chemicals, and mined minerals) to discrete solid parts (such as fasteners) to assemblies of such parts (such as household appliances and automobiles).

The term mass production was defined in a 1926 article in the Encyclopædia Britannica supplement that was written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Co. The New York Times used the term in the title of an article that appeared before publication of the Britannica article.^[1] It was also referenced by Sir Chiozza Money, the Fabian banker, politician and author, writing in the London Observer in 1919, comparing the efficiency of mass-production techniques as used in America with British practice.

Mass production of airplanes.

Overview[link]

Mass Production involves making many copies of products, very quickly, using assembly line techniques to send partially complete products to workers who each work on an individual step, rather than having a worker work on a whole product from start to finish.

Mass production of fluid matter typically involves pipes with centrifugal pumps or screw conveyors (augers) to transfer raw materials or partially complete product between vessels. Fluid flow processes such as oil refining and bulk materials such as wood chips and pulp are automated using a system of process control which uses various instruments to measure variables such as temperature, pressure, volumetric and level, providing feedback to a controller that holds a set-point.

Bulk materials such as coal, ores, grains and wood chips are handled by belt, chain, slat, pneumatic or screw conveyors, bucket elevators and mobile equipment such as front-end loaders. Materials on pallets are handled with forklifts. Also used for handling heavy items like reels of paper, steel or machinery are electric overhead cranes, sometimes called bridge cranes because they span large factory bays.

Mass production is capital intensive and energy intensive, as it uses a high proportion of machinery and energy in relation to workers. It is also usually automated while total expenditure per unit of product is decreased. However, the machinery that is needed to set up a mass production line (such as robots and machine presses) is so expensive that there must be some assurance that the product is to be successful to attain profits.

One of the descriptions of mass production is that "the skill is built into the tool", which means that the worker using the tool need not have the skill. For example, in the 19th or early 20th century, this could be expressed as "the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself" (not the training of the worker). Rather than having a skilled worker measure every dimension of each part of the product against the plans or the other parts as it is being formed, there were jigs ready at hand to ensure that the part was made to fit this set-up. It had already been checked that the finished part would be to specifications to fit all the other finished parts—and it would be made more quickly, with no time spent on finishing the parts to fit one another. Later, once computerized control came about (for example, CNC), jigs were obviated, but it remained true that the skill (or knowledge) was built into the tool (or process, or documentation) rather than residing in the worker's head. This is the specialized capital required for mass production; each workbench and set of tools (or each CNC cell, or each fractionating column) is different (fine-tuned to its task).

History[link]

Prerequisites of mass production were interchangeable parts, machine tools and power, especially in the form of electricity.

Some of the organizational management concepts needed to create 20th-century mass production, such as scientific management, had been pioneered by other engineers (most of whom are not famous, but Frederick Winslow Taylor is one of the well-known ones), whose work would later be synthesized into fields such as industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations research, and management consultancy. Henry Ford downplayed the role of Taylorism in the development of mass production at his company. However, Ford management performed time studies and experiments to mechanize their factory processes, focusing on minimizing worker movements. The difference is that while Taylor focused mostly on efficiency of the worker, Ford also substituted for labor by using machines, thoughtfully arranged, wherever possible.

The United States Department of War sponsored the development of interchangeable parts for guns produced at the arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts and Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in the early decades of the 19th century, finally achieving reliable interchangeability by about 1850.^[1] This period coincided with the development of machine tools, with the armories designing and building many of their own. Some of the methods employed were a system of gauges for checking dimensions of the various parts and jigs and fixtures for guiding the machine tools and properly holding and aligning the work pieces. This system came to be known as armory practice or the American system of manufacturing, which spread throughout New England aided by skilled mechanics from the armories who were instrumental in transferring the technology to the sewing machines manufacturers and other industries such as machine tools, harvesting machines and bicycles. Singer Manufacturing Co., at one time the largest sewing machine manufacturer, did not achieve interchangeable parts until the late 1880s, around the same time Cyrus McCormick adopted modern manufacturing practices in making harvesting machines.^[1]

Mass production benefited from the development of materials such as inexpensive steel, high strength steel and plastics. Machining of metals was greatly enhanced with high speed steel and later very hard materials such as tungsten carbide for cutting edges.^[2] Fabrication using steel components was aided by the development of electric welding and stamped steel parts, both which appeared in industry in about 1890. Plastics such as polyethylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can be easily formed into shapes by extrusion, blow molding or injection molding, resulting in very low cost manufacture of consumer products, plastic piping, containers and parts.

Factory electrification[link]

Electrification of factories began very gradually in the 1890s after the introduction of a practical DC motor by Frank J. Sprague and accelerated after the AC motor was developed by Nikola Tesla (Westinghouse) and others. Electrification of factories was fastest between 1900 and 1930, aided by the establishment of electric utilities with central stations and the lowering of electricity prices from 1914 to 1917.^[3]

Electric motors were several times more efficient than small steam engines because central station generation were more efficient than small steam engines and because line shafts and belts had high friction losses.^{[4] [5]} Electric motors allowed also more flexibility in manufacturing and required less maintenance than line shafts and belts. Many factories saw a 30% increase in output just from changing over to electric motors.

Electrification enabled modern mass production, as with Thomas Edison’s iron ore processing plant (about 1893) that could process 20,000 tons of ore per day with two shifts of five men each. At that time it was still common to handle bulk materials with shovels, wheelbarrows and small narrow gauge rail cars, and for comparison, a canal digger in previous decades typically handled 5 tons per 12 hour day.

The biggest impact of early mass production was in manufacturing everyday items, such as at the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, which electrified its mason jar plant in Muncie, Indiana, USA around 1900. The new automated process used glass blowing machines to replace 210 craftsman glass blowers and helpers. A small electric truck was used to handle 150 dozen bottles at a time where previously a hand truck would carry 6 dozen. Electric mixers replaced men with shovels handling sand and other ingredients that were fed into the glass furnace. An electric overhead crane replaced 36 day laborers for moving heavy loads across the factory.^[6]

According to Henry Ford:^[7]

”The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from the leather belt and line shaft, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry.”

The assembly plant of the Bell Aircraft Corporation in 1944. Note parts of overhead crane at both sides of photo near top.

Mass production was popularized in the 1910s and 1920s^{[citation needed]} by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company, which introduced electric motors to the then-well-known technique of chain or sequential production. Ford also bought or designed and built special purpose machine tools and fixtures such as multiple spindle drill presses that could drill every hole on one side of an engine block in one operation and a multiple head milling machine that could simultaneously machine 15 engine blocks held on a single fixture. All of these machine tools were arranged systematically in the production flow and some had special carriages for rolling heavy items into machining position. Production of the Ford Model T used 32,000 machine tools.^[8]

All processes in the factory were capable of turning out high precision work within tolerances.

Ford's contribution to mass production was synthetic in nature, collating and improving upon existing methods of sequential production and applying electric power to them, resulting in extremely-high-throughput, continuous-flow mass production, making the Model T affordable and, as such, an instant success. ^[9]

Although the Ford Motor Company brought mass production to new heights, it was a synthesizer and extrapolator of ideas rather than being the first creator of mass production. The following paragraphs touch on precursors from prior eras.

Before the 20th century[link]

Ships had been mass-produced using prefabricated parts and assembly lines in Venice several hundred years earlier. The Venetian Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day, in what was effectively the world's first factory which, at its height, employed 16,000 people. Mass production in the publishing industry has been commonplace since the Gutenberg Bible was published using a printing press in the mid-15th century.

In the Industrial Revolution simple mass production techniques were used at the Portsmouth Block Mills to make ships' pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. These were also used to make clocks and watches, and to make small arms. Though produced on a very small scale, Crimean War gunboat engines designed and assembled by John Penn of Greenwich are recorded as the first instance of the application of mass production techniques (though not necessarily the assembly-line method) to marine engineering.^[10] In filling an Admiralty order for 90 sets to his high-pressure and high-revolution horizontal trunk engine design, Penn produced them all in 90 days. He also used Whitworth Standard threads throughout.^[11]

While the preceding American system of manufacturing relied on steam power, mass production factories were electrified and used sophisticated machinery. Adoption of these techniques coincided with the birth of the Second Industrial Revolution in the USA and its emergence as the dominant industrial superpower in the 20th century. Countries that were quick to follow (e.g. Germany and Japan) achieved high rates of growth.

Use of assembly lines in mass production[link]

Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first.

Mass production systems for items made of numerous parts are usually organized into assembly lines. The assemblies pass by on a conveyor, or if they are heavy, hung from an overhead crane or monorail.

In a factory for a complex product, rather than one assembly line, there may be many auxiliary assembly lines feeding sub-assemblies (i.e. car engines or seats) to a backbone "main" assembly line. A diagram of a typical mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish than a single line.

Vertical integration[link]

Vertical integration is a business practice that involves gaining complete control over a product's production, from raw materials to final assembly.

In the age of mass production, this caused shipping and trade problems in that shipping systems were unable to transport huge volumes of finished automobiles (in Henry Ford's case) without causing damage, and also government policies imposed trade barriers on finished units.^[12]

Ford built the Ford River Rouge Complex with the idea of making the company's own iron and steel in the same factory as parts and car assembly took place. River Rouge also generated its own electricity.

Upstream vertical integration, such as to raw materials, is away from leading technology toward mature, low return industries. Most companies chose to focus on their core business rather than vertical integration. This included buying parts from outside suppliers, who could often produce them as cheaply or cheaper.

Standard Oil, the major oil company in the 19th century, was vertically integrated partly because there was no demand for unrefined crude oil, but kerosene and some other products were in great demand. The other reason was that Standard Oil monopolized the oil industry. The major oil companies were, and many still are, vertically integrated, from production to refining and with their own retail stations, although some sold off their retail operations. Some oil companies also have chemical divisions.

Lumber and paper companies at one time owned most of their timber lands and sold some finished products such as corrugated boxes. The tendency has been to divest of timber lands to raise cash and to avoid property taxes.

Today the trend is toward platform companies, where the value added is in market analysis, engineering and product design. The platform company contracts production to outside suppliers, often in low wage countries.

Advantages and disadvantages[link]

The economies of mass production come from several sources. The primary cause is a reduction of nonproductive effort of all types. In craft production, the craftsman must bustle about a shop, getting parts and assembling them. He must locate and use many tools many times for varying tasks. In mass production, each worker repeats one or a few related tasks that use the same tool to perform identical or near-identical operations on a stream of products. The exact tool and parts are always at hand, having been moved down the assembly line consecutively. The worker spends little or no time retrieving and/or preparing materials and tools, and so the time taken to manufacture a product using mass production is shorter than when using traditional methods.

The probability of human error and variation is also reduced, as tasks are predominantly carried out by machinery. A reduction in labour costs, as well as an increased rate of production, enables a company to produce a larger quantity of one product at a lower cost than using traditional, non-linear methods.

However, mass production is inflexible because it is difficult to alter a design or production process after a production line is implemented. Also, all products produced on one production line will be identical or very similar, and introducing variety to satisfy individual tastes is not easy. However, some variety can be achieved by applying different finishes and decorations at the end of the production line if necessary.

The Ford Model T produced tremendous affordable output but was not very good at responding to demand for variety, customization, or design changes. As a consequence Ford eventually lost market share to General Motors, who introduced annual model changes, more accessories and a choice of colors.^[1]

With each passing decade, engineers have found ways to increase the flexibility of mass production systems, driving down the lead times on new product development and allowing greater customization and variety of products.

Socioeconomic impacts[link]

In the 1830s, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville identified one of the key characteristics of America that would later make it so amenable to the development of mass production: the homogeneous consumer base. De Tocqueville wrote in his Democracy in America (1835) that "The absence in the United States of those vast accumulations of wealth which favor the expenditures of large sums on articles of mere luxury... impact to the productions of American industry a character distinct from that of other countries' industries. [Production is geared toward] articles suited to the wants of the whole people".

Mass production improved productivity, which was a contributing factor to economic growth and the decline in work week hours, alongside other factors such as transportation infrastructures (canals, railroads and highways) and agricultural mechanization. These factors caused the typical work week to decline from 70 hours in the early 19th century to 60 hours late in the century, then to 50 hours in the early 20th century and finally to 40 hours in the mid 1930's.

Mass production permitted great increases in total production. Using a European crafts system into the late 19th century it was difficult to meet demand for products such as sewing machines and animal powered mechanical harvesters.^[1] By the late 1920s many previously scarce goods were in good supply. One economist has argued that this constituted "overproduction" and contributed to high unemployment during the Great Depression.^[13]. Say's law denies the possibility of wide-scale overproduction and for this reason classical economists deny that it had any role in the Great Depression.

Mass production allowed the evolution of consumerism by lowering the unit cost of many goods.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Beaudreau, Bernard C. (1996). Mass Production, the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression. New York, Lincoln, Shanghi: Authors Choice Press. 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mass production

Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop performing at Parkenfestivalen 2011, Bodø, Norway
Background information
Birth name	James Newell Osterberg, Jr.
Born	(1947-04-21) April 21, 1947 (age 65) Muskegon, Michigan, U.S.
Genres	Punk rock, protopunk, garage rock, glam punk, shock rock, glam rock, hard rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums
Years active	1960–present
Labels	Virgin, RCA, Elektra
Associated acts	The Stooges, The Trolls, The Nymphs, The Iguanas, Slash, David Bowie, Deborah Harry, Blondie, Sum 41
Website	www.iggyandthestoogesmusic.com

Iggy Pop (born James Newell "Jim" Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor.^[1] Though considered an innovator of punk rock,^[1] Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues.^[2] Pop became known as 'Iggy' in high school, during which time he served as drummer for local blues band The Iguanas. He is vocalist of influential protopunk band The Stooges (Pop and the other surviving members of the group reunited in 2003),^[3] having become known, since the late 1960s, for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.^[4][5]

Though the singer's popularity has waned and waxed throughout his career, Pop has recorded a number of well-known songs, including "Lust for Life", "Real Wild Child", "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's),^[6] "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Search and Destroy", and "The Passenger". The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010

Early life[link]

Iggy Pop (AKA Iggy Stooge)^[7] was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of Louella (née Christensen) and James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan.^[8] Osterberg was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan.^[9] He is of Irish and English descent on his father's side, and of Norwegian and Danish ancestry on his mother's.^[10] His father was adopted by a Swedish American family and took on their surname (Österberg).^[10]

Music career[link]

Early days: 1960 to 1967[link]

The Prime Movers featuring Pop on drums

Osterberg began his music career as a drummer in different high school bands in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One band was the Iguanas, from the name of which he adopted his future moniker Iggy. After exploring local blues-style bands such as the Prime Movers (with brothers Dan and Michael Erlewine), he eventually dropped out of the University of Michigan^{[citation needed]} and moved to Chicago to learn more about blues. While in Chicago, he played drums in blues clubs, helped by Sam Lay (formerly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) who shared his connections with Iggy.^[11] Inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like The Sonics and The MC5, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges and began calling himself Iggy. The band was composed of Iggy on vocals, Ron Asheton on guitar, Asheton's brother Scott on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass.

The Stooges era: 1968 to 1975[link]

The seeds of Iggy Pop's stage persona were sown when he saw The Doors perform in 1967 at the University of Michigan and was amazed by the stage antics and antagonism displayed by singer Jim Morrison.^[9] Morrison's extreme behavior, while performing in a popular band, inspired the young Pop to push the boundaries of stage performance. Pop was the first performer to do a stage-dive, which he started at a concert in Detroit.^[9] Other exploits of Pop include rolling around in broken glass, exposing himself to the crowd and vomiting on stage.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968, one year after their live debut and now dubbed The Stooges, the band signed with Elektra Records, again following in the footsteps of The Doors, who were Elektra's biggest act at the time (reportedly, Pop called Moe Howard to see if it was all right to call his band "The Stooges," to which Howard responded by merely saying "I don't care what they call themselves, as long as they're not the Three Stooges!" and hung up the phone). The Stooges' first two albums The Stooges, (on which Iggy was credited, much to his displeasure,^{[citation needed]} as "Iggy Stooge"), produced by John Cale; and Fun House, sold poorly. Shortly after the new members joined, the group disbanded because of Pop's growing heroin addiction.

In 1971, Iggy Pop and David Bowie met at Max's Kansas City, a nightclub and restaurant in New York City.^[12] Pop's career received a boost from his relationship with Bowie when Bowie decided in 1972 to produce an album with Pop in England. With James Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a rhythm section. However, since neither Pop nor Bowie was satisfied with any players in England, they decided to re-unite The Stooges. It would not be a true reunion insofar as Dave Alexander, due to alcoholism, was unable to play on the record (he later died in 1975). Also, Ron Asheton grudgingly moved from guitar to bass to make way for Williamson to play guitar. The recording sessions produced the rock landmark Raw Power. After its release Scott Thurston was added to the band on keyboards/electric piano and Bowie continued his support, but Iggy's drug problem persisted. The Stooges' last show ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers, documented on the album Metallic K.O. Drug abuse stalled his career again for several years.

Bowie and Berlin: 1976 to 1978[link]

Iggy Pop, October 25, 1977 at the State Theatre in Minneapolis

After the second breakup of The Stooges, Iggy Pop made some recordings with James Williamson, but these were not released until 1977 (as Kill City, credited jointly to Iggy Pop and Williamson). Pop was unable to control his drug use and checked himself into a mental institution, UCLA’s neuropsychiatric institute, to try to clean up. David Bowie was one of his few visitors there, and he continued to support his friend and collaborator. It was also rumored that Bowie would smuggle in cocaine to give to Pop.^[13] In 1976, Bowie took him along as his companion on the Station to Station tour. This was Iggy Pop's first exposure to large-scale professional touring and he was impressed, particularly with Bowie's work rate.

Bowie and Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their addictions. In 1977, Pop signed with RCA and Bowie helped write and produce The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter with another team of brothers, Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of comedian Soupy Sales. Among the songs Bowie and Pop wrote together were "China Girl", "Tonight", and "Sister Midnight", all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on (the last being recorded with different lyrics as "Red Money" on the album Lodger). Bowie also played keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album TV Eye in 1978. In return, Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie's Low.

The Arista albums: 1979 to 1981[link]

Iggy Pop had grown dissatisfied with RCA, later admitting that he had made TV Eye as a quick way of fulfilling his three-album RCA contract. He moved to Arista Records, under whose banner he released New Values in 1979. This album was something of a Stooges reunion, with James Williamson producing and latter-day Stooge Scott Thurston playing guitar and keyboards. Not surprisingly, the album's style harked back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. Although highly regarded by many Iggy fans (some preferring it to the Bowie collaborations), New Values was not a popular success, despite some strong material including "Five Foot One" and "I'm Bored."

Iggy Pop, Cardiff, 1979

The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Iggy Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's nationwide pop show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of I'm Bored, Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was lip-synching, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. He was also interviewed by host Ian "Molly" Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then he has often toured there. While visiting New Zealand, Iggy Pop recorded a music video for "I'm Bored", and attended a record company function where he appeared to slap a woman and throw wine over a photographer.^[14] While in Australia, Iggy Pop was also the guest on a live late-night commercial TV interview show on the Ten Network. It is not known whether a recording of this interview exists, but the famous Countdown appearance has often been re-screened in Australia.

During the recording of Soldier (1980), Iggy Pop and Williamson quarrelled over production (the latter apparently wanted a big, Phil Spector-type sound) and Williamson was fired. Bowie appeared on the song Play it Safe, performing backing vocals with the group Simple Minds. The album and its follow-up Party (1981) were both commercial failures, and Iggy Pop was dropped from Arista. His drug habit varied in intensity, but persisted.

The 1980s[link]

In 1980, Iggy Pop published his autobiography I NEED MORE, co-written with Anne Weher, an Ann Arbor arts patron. The book, which includes a selection of black and white photographs, features a foreword by Andy Warhol. Warhol says that he met Iggy when he was Jim Osterberg, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1966. "I don't know why he hasn't made it really big," wrote the one Pop artist about the other. "He is so good."

Pop at Pinkpop, 1987.

The 1982 album Zombie Birdhouse on Chris Stein's Animal label, with Stein himself producing, was no more commercially successful than his Arista works, but again, in 1983, Iggy Pop's fortunes changed when David Bowie recorded a cover of the song "China Girl". The song had originally appeared on The Idiot, and was a major hit on Bowie's blockbuster Let's Dance album. As co-writer of the song, Pop received substantial royalties. On Tonight in 1984, Bowie recorded two more of their co-written songs, this time from the Lust for Life album, "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat", assuring Iggy Pop financial security, at least for the short term. The support from Bowie enabled Pop to resolve problems and permitted him to take a three-year break during which he overcame his heroin addiction and took acting classes.

Additionally, Iggy Pop contributed the title song to the 1984 film Repo Man (with Steve Jones, previously of the Sex Pistols, on guitar) as well as an instrumental called "Repo Man Theme" that was played during the opening credits.

In 1985, Pop recorded some demos with Jones. He played these demos to Bowie, who was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce an album for Pop: 1986's New Wave-influenced Blah Blah Blah, featuring the single "Real Wild Child", a cover of "The Wild One" originally written and recorded by Australian rock 'n' roll pioneer Johnny O'Keefe in 1958. The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK and was successful around the world, especially in Australia, where for the last twenty years it has been used as the theme music for the ABC's late-night music video show Rage. It remains Pop's solitary brush with major commercial success. Blah Blah Blah was Pop's highest-charting album in the U.S. since The Idiot in 1977, peaking at No. 75 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

Also in 1985, the movie Rock & Rule was released featuring performances by Iggy Pop and Lou Reed for the character Mok. Pop's song in the film was "Pain & Suffering" from the final sequence of the film.^[15]

In 1987, Pop appeared (along with Bootsy Collins) on a mostly instrumental album, Neo Geo, by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. The music video for "Risky", written and directed by Meiert Avis, won the first ever MTV Breakthrough Video Award. The groundbreaking video explores transhumanist philosopher FM-2030's ideas of Nostalgia for the Future in the form of an imagined love affair between a robot and one of Man Ray's models in Paris in the late 1930s. Additional inspiration was drawn from Jean Baudrillard, Edvard Munch's 1894 painting Puberty, and Roland Barthes Death of the Author. The surrealist black-and-white video uses stop motion, light painting, and other retro in-camera effects techniques. Meiert Avis recorded Sakamoto while at work on the score for The Last Emperor in London. Sakamoto also appears in the video painting words and messages to an open shutter camera. Iggy Pop, who performs the vocals on "Risky", chose not to appear in the video, allowing his performance space to be occupied by the surrealist era robot.

Pop's follow-up to Blah Blah Blah, Instinct (1988), was a turnaround in musical direction. Its stripped-back, guitar-based sound leaned further towards the sound of the Stooges than any of his solo albums to date. His record label, which had most likely been expecting another Blah Blah Blah, dropped him. Nevertheless, the King Biscuit radio show recording of the Instinct tour (featuring guitarist Andy McCoy and Alvin Gibbs on bass) reaching Boston on July 19, 1988, remains one of punk-rock's most enduring live albums.^{[citation needed]} Working with rock attorney Stann Findelle, Pop scored more movie soundtrack inclusions in 1989, "Living on the Edge of the Night" in the Ridley Scott Michael Douglas thriller, Black Rain and "Love Transfusion" in Wes Craven's Shocker.

The 1990s[link]

In 1990, Pop recorded Brick by Brick, produced by Don Was, with members of Guns N' Roses and The B-52's as guests, as well as backup vocals by many local Hollywood groups, two of whom (Whitey Kirst and Craig Pike) would create his band to tour and perform on his Kiss My Blood video (1991), directed by world-famous director Tim Pope and filmed at the Olympia in Paris. The video attracted much controversy, as it featured much footage of Pop performing with his penis exposed to the audience. The album was his first Gold-certified album in the U.S. (denoting sales of over 500,000 copies) and featured his first Top 40 U.S. hit, "Candy", a duet with B-52's singer Kate Pierson.

Also in 1990, Pop starred in the controversial opera The Manson Family by composer John Moran, released on Point Music/Phillip Classics, where he sang the role of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. That year he was also contributed to the Red Hot Organization's AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Blue project, singing a version of "Well Did You Evah!" in a duet with Deborah Harry.

In 1991, Pop and Kirst contributed the song "Why Was I Born (Freddy's Dead)" to the soundtrack of the film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. The song also plays over the end credits of the film, with a compilation of clips from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series running alongside the end credits.

In 1992, he collaborated with Goran Bregović on the soundtrack for the movie Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica. Pop sang four of the songs: In the Deathcar, TV Screen, Get the Money, and This is a Film. Also in 1992, he collaborated with the New York City band White Zombie. He recorded spoken word vocals on the intro and outro of the song "Black Sunshine" as well as playing the character of a writer in the video shot for the song. He is singled out for special thanks in the liner notes of the band's album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1.

In 1993, Pop released American Caesar, including two successful singles, "Wild America" and "Beside You." The following year Pop contributed to Buckethead's album Giant Robot, including the songs "Buckethead's Toy Store" and "Post Office Buddy". He appears also on the Les Rita Mitsouko album Système D where he sings the duet "My Love is Bad" with Catherine Ringer.

In 1996, Pop again found mainstream fame when his 1977 song "Lust for Life" was featured in the film Trainspotting. A new video was recorded for the song, with clips from the film and studio footage of Iggy dancing with one of its stars, Ewen Bremner. An Iggy Pop concert also served as a plot point in the film. The song has also been used in TV commercials for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (with many music critics denouncing the usage of the song to promote peppy cruises) and as the theme music to The Jim Rome Show, a nationally-syndicated American sports talk show.

In 1996, Pop released Naughty Little Doggie, with Whitey Kirst returning on guitar, and the single "I Wanna Live". In 1997, he remixed Raw Power to give it a rougher, more hard-edged sound; fans had complained for years that Bowie's official "rescue effort" mix was muddy and lacking in bass. Pop testified in the reissue's liner notes that on the new mix, "everything's still in the red". He co-produced his 1999 album Avenue B with Don Was, releasing the single "Corruption." Pop produced 2001's Beat 'Em Up, which gave birth to The Trolls, releasing the single "Football" featuring Trolls alumni Whitey Kirst and brother Alex.

In 1997, Pop was credited with the soundtrack to the film The Brave.

In the early to middle 1990s, Pop would make several guest appearances on the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He played James Mecklenberg, Nona Mecklenberg's father.

The Stooges reunion: 2003 to present[link]

Pop's 2003 album Skull Ring featured collaborators Sum 41, Green Day, Peaches, and The Trolls, as well as Ron and Scott Asheton, reuniting the three surviving founding members of The Stooges for the first time since 1974. Pop made a guest appearance on Peaches's song Kick It as well as the video. Also in 2003, his first full-length biography was published. Gimme Danger – The Story of Iggy Pop was written by Joe Ambrose; Pop did not collaborate on the biography or publicly endorse it. Having enjoyed working with the Ashetons on Skull Ring, Pop reformed The Stooges with bassist Mike Watt (formerly of the Minutemen) filling in for Dave Alexander, and Fun House saxophonist Steve Mackay rejoining the lineup. They have toured regularly since 2004. That year, Pop opened Madonna's Reinvention World Tour in Dublin.

Iggy and The Stooges played the Glastonbury Festival in June 2007. Their set included material from the 2007 album The Weirdness and classics such as "No Fun and "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Pop also caused controversy in June 2007 when he was interviewed on the BBC's coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. He used the phrase "paki shop", apparently unaware of its racist connotations, prompting three complaints and an apology from the BBC.^[16]

On March 10, 2008 Pop appeared at Madonna's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Together with The Stooges he sang raucous versions of two Madonna hits "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light." Before leaving the stage he looked directly at Madonna, quoting "You make me feel shiny and new, like a virgin, touched for the very first time.", from Madonna's hit song "Like A Virgin". According to guitarist Ron Asheton, Madonna asked The Stooges to perform in her place, as a protest to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for not inducting The Stooges despite six appearances on the nomination ballot.^[17] Pop also sang on the "No Fun" cover by Asian Dub Foundation on their 2008 album Punkara.

On June 1, 2008, The Stooges were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame.^[18]

On January 6, 2009, original Stooges guitarist, and Iggy's self-described best friend Ron Asheton, was found dead from an apparent heart attack. He was 60 years old.

In 2009 James Williamson rejoined the band after 29 years.^[19]

On December 15, 2009 it was announced that The Stooges would be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2010. Pop had "about two hours of a strong emotional reaction" to the news.^[20]

In March 2010 the Stooges and Iggy Pop were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[21]

In 2011, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by The Stooges was voted a Legendary Michigan Song.^[22]

Recent career[link]

Pop supplied vocals for the 1999 Death in Vegas UK Top-10 single Aisha. The same year he appeared on Hashisheen, The End Of Law, a collaborative effort by Bill Laswell, reading on the tracks The Western Lands and A Quick Trip to Alamut. He also sang on the tracks Rolodex Propaganda and Enfilade by At the Drive-In in 2000.

For New Year's Eve 1997, Iggy was the headliner for the annual Australian three-day concert the Falls Festival. He gave one of the most memorable performances in the history of the festival. A member of the audience got to do the countdown for the new year with Pop as part of a competition to guess Pop's new year's resolution. (It was "To do nothing and make a lot of money!")

Pop at Beale Street Music Festival, Memphis in May 2007.

In 2005 Pop appeared, along with Madonna, Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, and The Roots' Questlove, in an American TV commercial for the Motorola ROKR phone. In early 2006, Iggy and the Stooges played in Australia and New Zealand for the Big Day Out. They also began work on a new album, The Weirdness, which was recorded by Steve Albini and released in March 2007. In August 2006 Iggy and the Stooges performed at the Lowlands pop festival in the Netherlands, Hodokvas in Slovakia and in the Sziget Festival in Budapest.

Author Paul Trynka completed a biography of Iggy Pop (with his blessing) called Open Up and Bleed, published in early 2007. More recently^[when?], Iggy and the Stooges played at Bam Margera's wedding and Pop appeared on the single "Punkrocker" with the Teddybears in a Cadillac television commercial. Pop was also the voice of Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central cartoon Lil' Bush and confirmed that he has done voices for American Dad and Grand Theft Auto IV,^[23] which also included The Stooges song "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (though the game's manual credited Iggy Pop as the artist).

Pop guested on Profanation (Preparation for a Coming Darkness), the new album by the Bill Laswell-helmed group Praxis, which was released on January 1, 2008.^[24]

He fronts (from January 2009) a £25 million TV ad campaign for Swiftcover, using the strapline "Get a Life".^[25]

Pop collaborated with Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse on the album "Dark Night of the Soul", singing the track "Pain."

Pop's new solo album, Préliminaires, was released on June 2, 2009. Inspired by a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas) called La Possibilité d'une île (2005; Trans. as The Possibility of an Island by Gavin Bowd, 2006), Iggy was approached to provide the soundtrack for a documentary film on Michel and his attempts to make a film from his novel. Iggy's favourite character from Michel's novel is a little white dog named Fox. Iggy describes this new release as a "quieter album with some jazz overtones", the first single off the album, "King of the Dogs", bearing a sound strongly influenced by New Orleans jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. Iggy also admits that it's his response to being "sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music". The album is available on legal download sites, CD, and a Deluxe Boxset is available at only 6000 units worldwide. This boxset contains the Préliminaires album, a collector "Les Feuilles Mortes" b/w "King Of The Dogs" 7 inch, the cover of which is Iggy's portrait by Marjane Satrapi, and a 38 page booklet of drawings also by Marjane Satrapi.

Iggy sings on "We're All Gonna Die" on Slash's first solo album Slash which was released in April 2010.^[26]

Iggy appeared as a character in the video game Lego Rock Band to sing his song The Passenger and also lent his voice for the in game tutorial.^[27]

With reference to the song The Passenger, Iggy Pop has appeared on NZ television advertising phone networks to show how he can get a band to play together by conference call.

After a March 2010 stage diving accident, Pop claimed he would no longer stage dive. However, he did so on three occasions at a concert in Madrid, Spain on April 30, 2010.^[28] And it was much the same in London at the Hammersmith Apollo on May 2, 2010.^[29] On July 9, 2010 he again stage dived in Zottegem, Belgium, causing Iggy to bleed from the face.^[30]

In June 2010, Iggy Pop appeared at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto with the reformed Stooges on the NXNE main stage. The sheer size of the audience closed a central artery of Yonge Street.

In 2011 he teamed up with The Lilies, a collaboration between Sergio Dias of Os Mutantes and French group Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family to record the single 'Why?'.

Pop at the UK Hop Farm Festival, July 2011

On April 7, 2011, at age 63, Pop performed "Real Wild Child" on the tenth season of American Idol; the Los Angeles Times music blog "Pop & Hiss" described Pop as being "still magnetic, still disturbing."^[31]

Film career[link]

Iggy Pop, Harvard Square March 1977

Pop has had a limited career as an actor. He has appeared in sixteen movies, including Sid and Nancy (a non-speaking cameo role), The Color of Money, Hardware (voice only), The Crow: City of Angels, The Rugrats Movie, Snow Day, Coffee and Cigarettes (opposite Tom Waits, in the third segment of the film, "Somewhere in California"), Cry-Baby, Dead Man, Tank Girl and Atolladero, a Spanish science fiction Western. Pop also sings the main theme for Atolladero, he is the voice of The Beast From Another Dimension in the cult animated film Rock & Rule and also sings its song, "Pain and Suffering".

He has been featured in five television series, including Tales from the Crypt, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, where he played Nona's dad in the second and third season, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which he played Yelgrun in "The Magnificent Ferengi" episode. With The Stooges, he was also featured in an episode of MTV's Bam's Unholy Union as the main band performing at Bam's wedding. Additionally, a portion of the music video for Iggy's Butt Town was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butthead.

Pop has been profiled in four rockumentaries and has had songs on eighteen soundtracks, including Crocodile Dundee 2, Trainspotting, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Haggard, Arizona Dream, Repo Man, Black Rain, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Shocker, and Kurt Cobain: About a Son.

In the movie Velvet Goldmine, Ewan McGregor portrays Curt Wilde, a character loosely based on Iggy Pop. McGregor performs Pop's songs "TV Eye" and "Gimme Danger" in the film.

Pop voiced Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central show Lil' Bush.

Iggy Pop played himself as the DJ of the fictional rock station Liberty Rock Radio 97.8 in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

Pop provided the voice for a character in the English language version of the 2007 animated film Persepolis.

Iggy Pop also voiced a cameo in the American Dad! episode American Dream Factory as Jerry, the drummer, in Steve's band.

Iggy makes an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine entitled 'FLicKeR'.

In 2008, Iggy's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling novel Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.

In January 2009, Iggy was signed up as the face of Swiftcover, the UK-based online insurance company.^[32] The advert was then banned by the Advertising Standards Authority on April 28, 2009 for being misleading – it implied that Iggy Pop himself had an insurance policy with Swiftcover when at the time the company did not insure musicians.^[33]

Iggy Pop featured alongside indie starlet Greta Gerwig (Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, Baghead, Nights and Weekends) in the film "Art House" which will world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in April 2010.

Iggy Pop also featured as a voice talent in the 2004 ATARI video game DRIV3R, which was produced by Reflections Interactive.

In 2010, the Stooges song "Search and Destroy" was featured in the Lost: Final Chapter episode 04, The Substitute.^[34]

Iggy's cover of the Richard Berry song Louie Louie is used during the opening credits of Michael Moore's 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story

In February 2009, Iggy Pop played the character Victor in the movie Suck.

Iggy was also referenced in The Venture Brothers Episode Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part I) and Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II) alongside Klaus Nomi as the bodyguards to The Sovereign who is in fact David Bowie, Iggy along with Klaus who defect to Phantom Limb who then tries to kill David Bowie with a large glowing ball that he can summon at will to kill people on the command "POP!" He was quoted as saying to him before he kills him, "Too long have I been made to play the idiot, now you're going to be MY DOG!"

Iggy worked with Johnny Depp on several films: they appeared together in Cry-Baby and Dead Man, and Iggy provided the soundtrack for The Brave, which was directed by and starred Depp.

In the Super Mario Bros. video game series, the character Iggy Koopa was named after him.^[35]

Future biopic[link]

The Passenger was the putative name for a biographical film about Pop's early career with the Stooges. The film was to be directed by Nick Gomez, and Elijah Wood was to play Iggy Pop.^[36][37][38] As of 2010^[update], the project appears to be shelved.^[39]

Pop liked the script but refused to take part in the film. He said:

The script ain't chopped liver... It was a work of art. But subjectively, I don't want to be involved in any way. A producer and the writer sent me a very decent letter, and asked me to write back if I didn't want them to do it... I don't feel negative about it at all.

He also called Wood "a very poised and talented actor".^[40]

Classical scholarship[link]

In 1995, an established journal of classical scholarship, Classics Ireland, published Pop's reflections on the applicability of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the modern world in a short article, Caesar Lives, (Vol. 2, 1995).^[41] Pop also relates how reading Gibbon while on tour in the Southern United States inspired him to a spontaneous soliloquy he called "Caesar".

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

With The Stooges[link]

• 1969 – The Stooges
• 1970 – Fun House
• 1973 – Raw Power
• 2007 – The Weirdness

With James Williamson[link]

• 1977 – Kill City

Solo[link]

• 1977 – The Idiot
• 1977 – Lust for Life
• 1979 – New Values
• 1980 – Soldier
• 1981 – Party
• 1982 – Zombie Birdhouse
• 1986 – Blah Blah Blah
• 1988 – Instinct
• 1990 – Brick by Brick
• 1993 – American Caesar
• 1996 – Naughty Little Doggie
• 1999 – Avenue B
• 2001 – Beat 'Em Up
• 2003 – Skull Ring
• 2009 – Préliminaires
• 2012 - Après

Personal life[link]

Pop lives in the Miami area.^[42] He has been married three times: to Wendy Weissberg (for several weeks in 1968, the marriage was annulled shortly thereafter)^[43] to Suchi Asano (1984–1999),^[44] and most recently, he wed longtime sweetheart Nina Alu. He has a son, Eric Benson, born in 1970.^[45]

In the 1990s, Iggy Pop developed a friendship with Johnny Depp, Jim Jarmusch and tattoo artist Jonathan Shaw. According to Shaw, the four wore matching rings depicting a skull, and all but Iggy also had a similar skull-and-crossbones tattoo.^[46]

References[link]

Further reading/info[link]

• Trynka, Paul (2007). Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed. London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 1-84744-019-3. 
• Logan, Nick; Woffinden, Bob (1977). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock (First Edition). New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-52852-5. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iggy Pop

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Iggy Pop

• Iggy & The Stooges Official Website
• Iggy Pop at the Internet Movie Database
• Iggy Pop at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/clips/2806/ (Iggy Pop's infamous 1977 interview with Peter Gzowski, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's archive)
• Video of Iggy Pop collaboration with Sergio Dias (Os Mutantes) + Tahiti Boy & the Palmtree Family