IGGY POP ~ SHADES ~ SINGLE EDIT’86

Recorded late April-May 1986, Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland. First released on 23 October 1986, on Blah-Blah-Blah, and in February 1987 as a single (AM 374, c/w “Baby, It Can’t Fall”) which got a slight edit (“it makes me come in the night” was too much for radio, evidently) Bowie’s last public act of goodwill for Iggy Pop was to make him a hit record, which Bowie did with economy, selecting some Pop demos, writing a few other songs with him and recording the lot over three weeks with a skeleton crew. Kevin Armstrong provided the guitar, while the jack-of-all-trades Erdal Kizilcay essentially made the rest of the album: playing bass, synths, keyboards and drums, writing a string arrangement and, along with Armstrong, singing backing vocals. Co-producer David Richards programmed the Linn Drum. Bowie and Pop were the roadies, hauling gear in and out of the studio. Of the Bowie/Pop collaborations, “Shades” is mostly Bowie’s work, as he wrote the music and a good chunk of the lyric, including the entir