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Iggy Pop’s Best Song Oscar Contender for Gold Is Here in All Its Western Glory

2017 Weinstein Company And Netflix Golden Globes After Party - Arrivals
Just imagine his Oscar speech. Photo: Earl Gibson III/Getty Images

Though Iggy Pop may be on the verge of retirement, he won’t bow out without going through the awards-season ringer first. He and Danger Mouse have contributed a song to Matthew McConaughey’s Gold — in which McConaughey plays a literal gold digger of sorts — that may very well earn them an Oscar nomination. “Gold” has already been nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes, and though it lost to the more whimsical “City of Stars” from La La Land, it’s still on the list of Oscar-eligible hopefuls, along with 90 other songs. All that recognition and few have even heard the song, co-written by the film’s director Stephen Gaghan, until today. Iggy Pop has finally released “Gold” in all its Leonard Cohen–channeling glum Western glory; according to Gaghan, it pops up during a “crucial” scene where “something goes wrong, you know it’s bad, you just don’t know how bad it’s gonna be.” The movie is about a guy who sets out to the Indonesian jungles with very greedy intentions, but one listen to “Gold” and you might just confuse it for a period piece about the California Gold Rush.

Hear Iggy Pop’s Oscar Contender, ‘Gold’