Rock star Iggy Pop's new album was directly inspired by Michel Houellebecq's novel, "The Possibility of an Island."

The former lead singer of The Stooges released "Preliminaires" this week, a jazz and rock infused album. According to Google News, the singer was approached to write music for a documentary about the French novel, and the project evolved into a solo album.

Here are Iggy Pop's thoughts, from the article: "Literature's like coke and music's like heroin! Literature sharpens the mind, music stupidifies ... The book had soul and at the same time it showed great skills in just calmly illustrating some things that were inside my mind about sex, death and the opposite gender." (Via Maud Newton)