The Stooges (album)

Recording

For their first album, the Stooges had intended to record five songs: "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "No Fun", "1969", "Ann" and "We Will Fall". The five songs were staples—and essentially the basis—of the Stooges' live set at the time. A typical Stooges song of the period would involve two minutes of composed song followed by several minutes of improvisation. Having assumed that the five songs as normally performed would cover requirements for the album, the Stooges were told by their record label Elektra that they needed more material. According to Iggy Pop, "We handed [the five-song version of the album] in and they refused it. They said, 'There aren't enough songs!' So we lied and said, 'That's OK, we've got lots more songs.'" "Asthma Attack", which had first been mentioned by Iggy Pop in a Trouser Press autodiscography interview, was also recorded during the sessions, but not discovered (or at least not used on the 2005 double-CD reissue) until the 2010 Rhino Handmade box was compiled; it is not clear whether "Asthma Attack" was recorded along with the first five songs or not.

In reality, the Stooges were about a day ahead of themselves when Iggy made that statement to Elektra; overnight, the group wrote three more songs, "Real Cool Time", "Not Right" and "Little Doll", and played them for the first time in the studio.

An initial mix by producer John Cale, apparently resembling ex-Velvet Underground bandmate Lou Reed's "closet mix" of that band's eponymous third album of the same year, was rejected by Elektra. The mix as heard on the final product was done by Iggy Pop and Elektra Records president Jac Holzman. Four of Cale's original mixes would later appear on the bonus disc of a 2005 reissued version, with pitch correction applied to them. Five years later, all eight Cale mixes were released unaltered on the first disc of a 2010 collector's edition release of the album.

Release

The Stooges was released on August 5, 1969, by record label Elektra.

Mark Deming of AllMusic writes "[The Stooges] didn't really sound like anyone else around when their first album hit the streets in 1969."

On August 16, 2005, Elektra and Rhino Records jointly re-issued the album as a specially-priced double CD, with a remastered version of the album on disc one and alternate takes on disc two. On May 7, 2010, Rhino Records again released the album in their "Handmade" series as a collector's package including two CDs, a 7" record and a 7"x7"-sized booklet. The first disc features the main songs, the single version of "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and all original John Cale mixes of the eight songs. The second disc, and both sides of the 7" single, contain the previously unissued "Asthma Attack", a staple of the group's early live shows.

Reception and legacy

According to music historian Denise Sullivan, The Stooges was "disavowed" by most critics; Sullivan nonetheless called it "a rock'n'roll classic". In a contemporary review, Edmund O. Ward of Rolling Stone called it "loud, boring, tasteless, unimaginative and childish", while conceding that he "kind of liked it". Robert Christgau gave it a backhanded compliment in his column for The Village Voice, deeming the record "stupid-rock at its best".

In retrospect, Will Hodgkinson called The Stooges "charged and brutal garage-rock", and Pitchfork critic Joe Tangari said it was one of the essential forerunners to the punk rock movement of the 1970s; it and the Stooges' next two albums were later deemed "proto-punk landmarks", according to Mojo journalist Manish Agarwal. Daryl Eslea, writing for BBC Music, called the album "rock at its most primordial. ... [the] album is the original punk rock rush on record, a long-held well-kept secret by those in the know." Mark Deming of AllMusic commented, "Part of the fun of The Stooges is, then as now, the band managed the difficult feat of sounding ahead of their time and entirely out of their time, all at once."

In 2003, the album was ranked at number 185 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The same magazine included "1969" in their "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" list. Robert Dimery, writing in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, said that the album was "a collection of brilliant curios, which were neither full-on garage rock, nor out-and-out dirge." In March 2005, Q magazine placed "I Wanna Be Your Dog" at number 13 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

Track listing

All tracks written by The Stooges (Dave Alexander, Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton and Iggy Stooge (Iggy Pop)).

Personnel

The Stooges

Additional personnel

Technical personnel

2005 reissue personnel