PARIS (AFP) — Godfather of punk Iggy Pop is releasing "a quieter album" on May 18 that targets French-speakers and was inspired by novelist Michel Houellebecq's "The Possibility of an Island".
Carrying the French title "Preliminaires" (Preliminaries), the album's cover is designed by Franco-Iranian "Persepolis" comic-book author Marjane Satrapi, record label EMI said Monday.
"I made it really especially for France and people who speak French," says the singer, sitting in a black singlet out in front of a swimming pool, in a video on www.iggypoppreliminaires.com.
The 61-year-old singer sings one number in French on the album -- "Autumn Leaves", originally written by poet Jacques Prevert, with music by Joseph Kosma, that was a hit for Yves Montand.
"It's a quieter album with some jazz overtones," he says on his website. "I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music."
The idea of the album, he adds, came after he was asked to write music for a documentary about a film based on Houllebecq's novel "about death, sex, and the end of the human race."
Iggy Pop -- real name, James Newell Osterberg -- was lead singer of The Stooges, a 1960s-1970s garage rock band that influenced heavy metal and punk rock and whose live acts included Pop taking drugs, self-mutilating, verbally abusing the audience and leaping off stage.
His best-known solo numbers include "Lust for Life", "I'm Bored" and "Real Wild Child".
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