Iggy Pop and Julien Baker have joined the Armed to roll out their latest single “Sport of Form.” The release arrives ahead of the band’s upcoming sophomore album, Perfect Saviors, out Aug. 25.
Baker serves on vocals and Iggy plays God for the track’s accompanying video. The Armed’s Tony Wolski explained the song’s title in a statement to Rolling Stone: “There are two types of sport — those of measure and those of form. A sport of measure like basketball, football, or soccer has a point system and a sort of binary path to victory. A sport of form is something like diving, figure skating, or bodybuilding — something with evolving standards and a layer of subjectivity and some sort of critical component. The world that surrounds us is complex, and our lives are truly more akin to a sport of form than one of measure. Yet, so many people see it as exactly the opposite. “
He added, “Lyrically, this song is about the human need to win a game that we’re not even actually playing. Sonically, it is a reflection of that cognitive dissonance through a constant whiplash between beauty and ugliness, severity and tenderness, obscenity and grace.”
Iggy recently united with Duff McKagan and Chad Smith for his Every Loser tour launch in Los Angeles. On Sunday, Baker and fellow boygenius members Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus took the stage during their performance in Tennessee dressed in drag queen makeup and looks as they made a statement about the state governor’s anti-LGBTQ stances with a chant of “F–ck Bill Lee.”
Produced by Wolski, Ben Chisholm, and Troy Van Leeuwen, and mixed by Alan Moulder, Perfect Saviors follows the Armed’s breakout record ULTRAPOP. Contributors to the record include Baker, Sarah Tudzin, Mark Guiliana, Patrick Shiroishi, and Justin Meldal-Johnsen.
“Predictable primal dangers have given way to newer social ones,” Wolski said of the album. “And the result is a world that is confounding and terrifying — but ultimately still beautiful. We hope this record is exactly all of that, too.” The singer continued, “Perfect Saviors is our completely unironic, sincere effort to create the biggest, greatest rock album of the 21st century.”