Back in time

7 February 2023

This day 50 years ago, on 7 February 1973, Michigan rock legends THE STOOGES
fronted by their out-of-his-fucking-mind dopehead IGGY POP released their 3rd LP,
named RAW POWER.

Just as with their 2 previous longplayers the recognition only came up over the coming years. Most critics still had no clue what Pop and his immense impact on the future of outlaw rock ‘n roll would be at the moment of this 3rd power-Stooge-house release. Of course, most of them claimed afterward they always knew that the lust for life rebel was
a natural-born gamechanger.

Search and Destroy – Live in Paris in 1991

Pitchfork said back in 2010 when the album got a Legacy Deluxe Edition: “When Iggy Pop commanded a generation of glam-rock kids and biker-bar burnouts to “dance to the beat of the living dead” on Raw Power’s totemic title track, he wasn’t just talking B-movie nonsense– he was heralding his band’s back-from-the-grave resurrection. Because the Stooges heard on Raw Power were not the same band that produced 1969’s self-titled debut or 1970’s Funhouse, but rather some mutant, zombie version… It speaks volumes about the songs’ pure immediacy and charisma that, even in its original mix, Raw Power became the album most responsible for giving the Stooges a life after death. Where the primordial caveman blues of The Stooges and the proto-metallic grind of Funhouse made them touchstones for future grunge, stoner-rock, and noise artists, Raw Power provided a mainline for first-generation punks and the 80s hard-rockers that followed in their wake.” Score: 8.3/10.

Raw Power – Live in Paris in 1991

David Bowie mixed the record and remembered it well afterward: “The most absurd situation I encountered when I was recording was the first time I worked with Iggy Pop. He wanted me to mix Raw Power, so he brought the 24-track tape in, and he put it up. He had the band on one track, lead guitar on another and him on a third. Out of 24 tracks there were just three tracks that were used. He said ‘see what you can do with this’. I said, ‘Jim, there’s nothing to mix’. So we just pushed the vocal up and down a lot. On at least four or five songs that was the situation, including “Search and Destroy.” That’s got such a peculiar sound because all we did was occasionally bring the lead guitar up and take it out.”

STREAM ALBUM

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IGGY POP: Bio – Discography – Website

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