In today's musical ever-volatile environment which finds rock music almost completely pushed off the public radar, it seems appropriate to share a few words about what I feel is undoubtedly one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time, Iggy & the Stooges' Raw Power.
Though it's become associated with a plethora of sub-genre labels including glam, garage, punk and the obnoxiously misappropriated "classic rock", Raw Power can only be accurately described as rock and roll in all its visceral purity. It almost seems bizarre to write about about an album whose experience is so intensely physical. As a matter of fact, if you haven't heard the album and you're reading this review, get off my blog and TURN IT UP, pronto. Thank me later.
Raw Power couldn't be more aptly titled. Decades of more extreme forms of Rock music (all of which owe something to the Stooges and Raw Power) have followed in its path, but very little Punk, Metal and Grunge have matched its grand intensity and aggression. The Stooges raise hairs not simply with volume, speed and attack but with their nihilistic attitude and approach to playing rock music.
For those new to Iggy & The Stooges, here's a brief history. Led by extreme rock icon Iggy Pop, The Stooges rose out of the late 1960's Detroit rock scene, which was something of an antithesis to the hippie movement. Along with New York's Velvet Underground and the Motor City's own MC5, the Stooges directly prefaced Punk, Metal, Grunge and "Alternative" music as a whole with their violent, noisy and technically primal take on Garage Rock. Their early shows regularly featured Pop smearing himself with blood and peanut butter over the band exploding their gear or using vacuum cleaners as instruments.
With two albums and a growing reputation as cult favorites under their belt by 1973, The Stooges were all but finished due to internal strife and the members' regular consumption of drugs, until rising star and Stooges fan David Bowie swept Pop off to England to revitalize his fading career. This resulted in the Stooges reforming, with guitarist Ron Asheton taking over the bass and the more technically accomplished yet just as violent James Williamson taking the guitar.
This combination and newfound focus resulted in the genius of Raw Power. Whereas their previous two albums featured fuzzed out, primal jams which often resulted in classic songs, Raw Power features more ambitious songwriting. Rather than mute the band's intensity, this approach resulted in the band's most punishing and aggressively melodic songs yet. Pop screams and howls hauntingly violent lyrics of sex and war over Williamson's eardrum-slashing guitar riffs, which sound like a deranged mix of Keith Richards and Jimmy Page on 11.
In terms of songwriting, the album's track list never lets up. The rampaging opening track "Search & Destroy" has become the album's (and arguably the band's) signature song, which blends a statement of purpose with Vietnam war imagery. The sophomore ballad "Gimme Danger" almost gives the audience a rest as a minor-key acoustic ballad, until the bridge kicks into an inferno with Pop's ambiguously threatening refrain "Swear you're gonna feel my hand..." Nearly straightforward hard rock songs like "Penetration" and "Raw Power" feature an unsettling menace with extreme sexual overtones and serene instruments like piano and celesta sprinkling in the background of the band's aural chaos. By the time the album closes out on a pair of rockers ("Shake Appeal" and "Death Trip") more intense than the opening, your heart is racing and everything else will be numb from the experience.
There has much been contention over the years over the album's production. Bowie's original mix has been critiqued as being thin and brittle, yet that very sound ended up influencing many punk bands as it brought out the album's primitive qualities. Pop's late '90s remix with Bruce Dickinson has been categorized as the single loudest album of all time at -4 dB's, with the original group criticizing its natural distortion. I personally prefer the latter mix, as the album's very nature is not in its subtlety but its brute force. Why not let Williamson and the rhythm jump out of your speakers and tear them to shreds?
Though the new lineup of the Stooges only made this one album, it's endurance in Rock history has been a lasting one. No other album has captured the genre's commanding, exciting and dangerous nature as effectively as Raw Power. Thanks to Almost Famous, "Search & Destroy" was introduced to the mainstream in a memorable scene featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman as iconic Rock critic Lester Bangs. While their popularity will never approach that of Black Sabbath or even the Sex Pistols, the Stooges' influence is just as important. Artists from disparate sub-genres cite Raw Power as an influence including Nirvana, Guns 'N Roses, Rage Against the Machine, the Clash, Sonic Youth, Metallica and even Cee-Lo Green. Its importance is immeasurable.
As I said, it's somewhat moot to write about this album. It simply must be turned up to 11 to be experienced. Just be ready for irritated neighbors, torn eardrums and heart palpitations. But it will all be worth it to have your life changed.
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