Raw Power
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| Raw Power | ||
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| Studio album by The Stooges | ||
| Released | February, 1973 (US) June, 1973 (UK) |
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| Recorded | September 10-October 6, 1972 at CBS Studios, London | |
| Genre | Proto-punk, Glam Rock, Detroit rock | |
| Length | 34:00 | |
| Label | Columbia | |
| Producer(s) | Iggy Pop | |
| Professional reviews | ||
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| The Stooges chronology | ||
| Fun House (1970) |
Raw Power (1973) |
Metallic K.O. (1976) |
Raw Power is a 1973 album by proto-punk band The Stooges, fronted by future icon Iggy Pop. Featuring blistering-fast guitar riffs and shouted vocals, Raw Power was not able to capture a mainstream market. In spite of the inaccessibility, a small number of listeners took the sound to heart, and many of these people soon became influential leaders in the early punk movement. The album's production has become legendary for the loud volume at which it is mastered and how the guitars are mixed much louder than anything else. The album is so legendary that it has become sort of a yardstick against which other albums have been compared; J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr said about their album You're Living All Over Me: "The guitar jumps out so big. It's almost like Raw Power."
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[edit] Album history
Iggy Pop had been signed by MainMan Management, who handled David Bowie, as a solo artist, but Pop was hellbent on reforming the Stooges. Signed to Columbia Records, he was sent to London to write and record their album with his new collaborator, James Williamson. Pop insisted that his fellow ex-Stooges Ron Asheton and Scott Asheton participate in the recording sessions. Ron Asheton switched to bass (having played guitar on the first two Stooges album) while Williamson played all of the guitar parts.
Pop produced and mixed the album by himself. Mainman demanded that the album be remixed due to Pop's botched first attempt having mixed most of the instruments into one channel, and the vocals into the other, but Pop refused. When Mainman offered to let David Bowie attempt to rescue the album through a remix, Pop agreed—having been told by Mainman that the album would not be released otherwise—on the sole condition that his own mix for "Search And Destroy" be retained. Bowie reportedly remixed the other seven songs on the album in a single day in a cheap Los Angeles studio.
"Search and Destroy" and "Shake Appeal" were both pulled from the album and released as singles.
Iggy Pop said that the label insisted on two ballads for the record, one on side 1 and one on side 2. These two "ballads" are "Gimme Danger" and "I Need Somebody".
Such was the controversy over Bowie's mix that low-fidelity copies of Pop's original mixes circulated among fans for years. In 1995, a selection of these original mixes was released by Bomp Records as Rough Power. Fans and critics generally agreed that the original mixes were interesting, but not necessarily superior to Bowie's efforts.
Raw Power peaked at #182 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. In 2003, the album was ranked number 125 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
In 1997 Columbia Records invited Iggy Pop to remix the entire album for re-release on Compact Disc. Pop cited longtime encouragement from fans and peers, the existence of Rough Power, his distaste for how the original 1989 CD release of Raw Power sounded, and the fact that Columbia were going to release the new mix on its sublabel Legacy Recordings as factors that led him to go through with the new mix. On the other hand, some fans—Robert Quine among them—felt the new remix was as unfaithful to the material as the original 1973 mix, and further criticized the audible digital distortion in the new mix. In the reissued CD's liner notes, however, Iggy points out that one of his intentions in doing the new mix was to keep audio levels in the red (which would deliberately cause such distortion) while at the same time making the music more powerful and listenable.
Iggy Pop said about the new mix in the liner notes of the reissue: "Everything's still in the red, it's a very violent mix. The bottom line is that this is a wonderful album but it's always sounded fragile and rickety, and that band was not fragile and not rickety. That band could kill any band at the time and frankly can just kill any of the bands that built on this work since, just eat any of those poodles."
Kurt Cobain from the rock band Nirvana wrote in his Journals numerous times that this was his favorite album of all time.
[edit] Track listing
- "Search and Destroy" – 3:29
- "Gimme Danger" – 3:33
- "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" – 4:54 (originally titled "Hard to Beat")
- "Penetration" – 3:41
- "Raw Power" – 4:16
- "I Need Somebody" – 4:53
- "Shake Appeal" – 3:04
- "Death Trip" – 6:07
All songs written by Iggy Pop and James Williamson.
[edit] Personnel
- Iggy Pop - vocals
- James Williamson - guitars
- Ron Asheton - bass, backing vocals
- Scott Asheton - drums
[edit] Recording credits
[edit] Original 1973 version
Recorded at CBS Studios, London.
Originally mixed by David Bowie at Western Sound, Hollywood
[edit] 1997 reissue
Produced and remixed by Iggy Pop at Sony Studios, New York.
Executive Producer: Bruce Dickinson
| The Stooges |
|---|
| Iggy Pop | Ron Asheton | Scott Asheton | Mike Watt | Steve MacKay |
| Former members: | Dave Alexander | James Williamson |
| Discography |
| Albums: The Stooges | Fun House | Raw Power | Metallic K.O. | Skull Ring | Telluric Chaos | The Weirdness |
| Other releases: 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions (box set) | Live In Detroit (DVD) |
