On Tuesday, Iggy Pop and the Ensemble intercontemporain won the 2022 Polar Music Prize in a rite in Stockholm.
The award, which celebrates excellence in music, is given to a popular music artist and a classical artist. Composer Diane Warren also accepted the 2020 honor in the rite because COVID was delayed at past awards ceremonies.
Accepting her award, Iggy Pop commented, “Recognition is a deceptive lover. . . Ada Osterberg, a Swedish woman who immigrated to the United States, followed my father James. . . [Ada] was a Red Cross nurse and raised my father in the Great Depression. . . They were wonderful people, genuine people. I am neither wonderful nor genuine. Right now, I’m a myth. Fortunately, music is a form of myth. All good looks come from trust in myth. from time to time, you have to become genuine, like bullets. So when you think of music, when you think of that value, and if you don’t forget me, think of balls.
Diane Warren, a 13-time Oscar nominee, was also on hand to receive her 2020 honor. In his speech, he said: “I’ve always thought of my songs as a passport. They took me, a kid from Van Nuys, California, with the wild dream of finding a songwriter, to many places I can only believe I can go: to the voices of some of the most important singers on the planet, to the hearts of other people I’ll never meet anywhere in the world. Global that my songs played in some way and have become part of the soundtrack of their lives, at the Oscars, in so many places where I was just fantasizing. Tonight, in this country, in this prestigious award. I can’t believe that my calling is now among the wonderful artists who have also won this honor. . . »
He continued, “This is what I still wake up every day and live to do. I don’t realize for a minute how lucky I am. That I can write a song so that someone feels good, feels seen, feels understood, feels less alone. Thank you for this award and for an amazing night that I will never forget.
The Polar Music Prize has been organized annually since its founding in 1989 through Swedish music icon Stig “Stikkan” Anderson, editor, lyricist and manager of ABBA. Winners include Sir Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Björk, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Grandmaster Flash, Ann-Sophie Mutter and Metallica. This year’s rite took place at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden.