Iggy Pop celebrates 73rd birthday by releasing rare Sly and the Family Stone cover

Though we may have lost our grip on reality and find ourselves questioning what day it is every single day, we absolutely fucking know what Tuesday is: it's Iggy Pop's birthday.

The Godfather of Punk turned 73, and celebrated by releasing an exclusive cover of Sly & the Family Stone's “Family Affair” — a song Pop covered in 1985.

The Stooges frontman released the cover, which features Bootsy Collins, as a free download, and addressed his fans as “Poptimists” on his official site.

”[This track] made me feel good and it was good company and I hoped I could put it out and it would be good company for someone else too,” he said.

The track was a No. 1 single for the West Coast funk band and has been a favorite of Pop's since it was released 1971. He told Lauren Laverne of BBC 6Music that the song came to him at a time when he “was kinda on the ropes,” adding that it has “a lot of truth in it.”

In the last year, the Detroit icon found himself releasing his 18th record, Free, a jazzy and meditative departure from the raucous and raw rock of Pop's heyday. He also appeared as a coffee-adicted zombie in Jim Jarmusch's star-studded The Dead Don't Die, released his own coffee blend, and landed a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Stooges' sophomore record, 1970's Fun House, which will be commemorated with the release of a massive multimedia 15xLP boxset in July, available for pre-order via Rhino Records.

You can download “Family Affair” via Bandcamp or Pop's official website.


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