James Gunn's new Superman movie features an Iggy Pop song, but probably not any of the Iggy Pop songs you'd first guess. In the final scene, during a conversation between David Corenswet's Clark Kent and Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane, you hear "Punkrocker," Iggy Pop's 2006 collaboration with the Swedish band the Teddybears. As the story often goes with superhero movie soundtracks, the song is now having a viral moment, and so the punkrocker himself played it live for the first time Saturday night, closing out his set at Project Pabst Festival in Portland.
Just to set the record straight, the Teddybears first released their version of "Punkrocker" in 2000, but it went relatively unknown stateside until Iggy Pop hopped on a re-recorded version of the track six years later, bringing it to a slightly larger audience. (They were working it out on the remix even in 2006!) That's the version Gunn said he stumbled across one day thanks to his Spotify algorithm, and he decided to use it in the film. Now it's blowing up on TikTok.
Apparently at Project Pabst, Iggy Pop dedicated "Punkrocker" to Superman -- I'm not sure if he meant Superman the movie or Superman the guy -- so it seems like he's getting a kick out of the TikTok activity. See an audience video below.
