Chill Your Idols: Iggy Pop Meets Sum 41

We’ve all been there. You’re a 56-year-old punk pioneer harbouring fears of losing his edge. Your upcoming album, Skull Ring, boasts an admittedly bad ass title, yet something isn’t quite right. Although in 2003 the name Iggy Pop might still resonate with those eggheads down at Amoeba Records, the real question is whether the kids are coming along for the ride. Later, while shopping with your son at a Hot Topic in Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Briarwood Mall, the answer suddenly hits you. There you are, helping your son pick out an overpriced Sublime t-shirt (as always, you’re topless), when you hear a nasally “singing” voice over the store’s PA system. “Hey, this guy kinda sounds like Johnny Rotten,” you tell your son, who gives you an embarrassed, “who’s that?” before explaining that this tuneless drivel is in fact Sum 41, the Canadian pop punk band making waves in malls across North America. It may sound like shit, even to your increasingly questionable taste, but there’s money to be made. After all, you need Skull Ring to shift some serious product. With a little luck, maybe you’ll finally be able to afford a Sublime t-shirt of your own, or any shirt for that matter. You borrow your son’s cell phone and close the deal right there on the spot. And you’ve got just the song in mind for them…

“Little Know It All”, the lone single from 2003’s Skull Ring, features our man Iggy Pop making yet another stab at mainstream success, this time by throwing in his lot with the suburban sneer of Sum 41 (and what a sneer it is). Sure, both acts might ostensibly be considered punk, but Iggy’s decision to work with Sum 41 seems calculated to generate sales, rather than shore up his artistic legacy. And I thought it was supposed to be about the music, man! Given the massive generation gap between Iggy and the boys from Sum 41, it should come as no surprise that “Little Know It All” is more than a little lacking in chemistry. This is punk by numbers, the kind of derivative schlock a 13-year-old discovering the Ramones would write, then toss aside when that second beer finally wears off. Mix one part outsider protagonist, another part non-conformist screed, add just a dash of dim-witted social commentary, and there you have it. In other words, a tune for the ages.

And what lifeless testament to an aging punk’s hubris would be complete without a rollicking music video to go with it? Thankfully, even here “Little Know It All” has got us covered. The song’s video showcases Iggy Pop and Sum 41 delivering a kickass rendition of their now legendary jam. No bells, no whistles. Just pure punk rock – or at least a pale approximation of it. Who can really tell anymore? Gone are the days of Iggy playing the sort of dank, vermin-infested holes the Stooges formerly called home. The venue in this video looks more like a student union building, with a correspondingly safe audience of jocks, nerds, and campus winos. It sure ain’t CBGB’s, but I guess it had to do. With Iggy and Sum 41 locked into the groove and firing on all cylinders, why stop with “Little Know It All”? Sadly, following the album’s critical and commercial failure, this was a one and done collaboration, not to be repeated. Oh, well. We’ll always have Skull Ring.