Album: The Stooges
Artist: The Stooges
Release Date: August 5, 1969
Genre: Proto-Punk
Length: 0:34:33
Label: Elektra Records
Producer: John Cale
Rolling Stone Top 500 (2012): #185
Rolling Stone Top 500 (2020): #488
1,001 Album Book: Yes
Introduction to Punk 101...
Headed by punk icon Iggy Pop, The Stooges is the debut studio record by none other than the Stooges. Upon release, this record charted at #106 on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart despite the critique from critics and eventually went on to be one of the spearheading albums of the "proto-punk" genre.
The album starts off with a guitar "waa-waa" along with a steady snare drum beat on the track "1969". The guitar weaves in and out of each speaker giving a much larger sound than could originally be accomplished. The song quickly introduces Iggy Pop and the frantic pacing the Stooges came to love. The repetition from the guitar riff paired with the patterned drum part enhances the sound of each instrument within the track. The guitar starts to solo over the rest of the band, including the vocal part starting around 1:40 into the song. "It's 1969" occasionally continues until the end while the guitar drills the complexity into the listener's brain all while the bass guitar and drums play the same patterns as stated in the beginning of the track.
"1969" eventually rose to become the #35 song on the Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs". The second track on the album, "I Wanna Be Your Dog", is featured on Q magazine as the #13 song in the list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Tracks". Immediately erupting with distortion, feedback and angst, you can feel the reasoning behind this pick. The mysterious feel from the guitar, the driving bass melodies, mixed with the lazy singing of Iggy Pop paired up with cheerful sleigh bells all make this track a legendary punk-rock anthem. The digitized solo bringing the song to a fade-out is a wonderful feature to start and end with the same, yet developed sound.
Marking the end of the first half of the record, "We Will Fall" is another mysterious track that comes in at nearly 10:20, giving the band more room to play with the mystifying sounds. The rest of the group repeating "Oh, gi, ran, ja, ran, ja, ja, ran" with the slight plucking of the bass and an almost metallic type of beat from the drums gives this song a sparse, yet somehow creepily dense track worthy of any horror film. The end of the track introduces a viola, played by producer John Cale, that perfectly takes the repetitive song to the end.
The fourth track on the record "No Fun" is another song that has very typical Stooge-like sounds. The drum introduction, the crunchy guitar, the slight bass guitar that carries the song across the length and the clapping throughout are all aspects that makes this album The Stooges. "No Fun" is a track talking about boredom and how it can make people do crazy things which is telling based on the ending interaction where Iggy Pop starts saying "c'mon Ron" and it goes into a guitar solo which is Iggy Pop evidently talking to guitarist of the Stooges, Ron Asheton to entice Ron to put on a show and give them any reason to not be bored.
After the initial strength in the tracks, the ending songs seem to just lose some of the creative energy that was placed in the first half of the record. "Real Cool Time" is another gritty, guitar featured song but doesn't have the same pleasantries as the first two guitar heavy songs "1969", and "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
"Ann" is the most laid back song on the album besides "We Will Fall" but almost doesn't feel like the same band. The psychedelia atmosphere in "Ann" brings out a mix of Pink Floyd and The Doors but eventually explodes about 2/3 of the way into the song. The guitar distortion continues to be one of the most prominent features of the album, but this song mixes the rhythms of the bass and drums perfectly to allow them to feed off of each other flawlessly.
The Stooges is one of the first punk records ever released and with that there will obviously be some issues since it wasn't a refined genre at this point. The strengths on the record are so strong but sometimes it does feel as though the weaker tracks are copy-cats of the strong songs. While there are redeeming qualities in each song, the continuous distortion guitar without much substance outside of solos, and the lazy vocal style of Iggy Pop make the entire album weaker than it could, while still being a top-tier record. All of the pieces are there and present but for one reason or another some of the record falls flat while the other shines heavily.
I enjoyed my time listening to this album for the most part. Like I said, the entire album sounds like one long a lot of the time but has bits of greatness. The driving bass throughout is fantastic and the complexity within the drummers beats are fantastic additions, but when Iggy Pop decides to be a lazy, emotionless singer, that makes some songs hard to listen to attentively. I would recommend this album for the strong parts alone but wouldn't doubt if you skip some songs...
Favorite Songs: "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "1969", "No Fun"
Least Favorite Songs: "Real Cool Time", "Not Right"
Production Quality:
Mix = 6.5/10 (Heavily distorted throughout which is the sound they wanted but overpowers a lot of the other parts of the record)
Innovation = 9.5/10 (Beginnings of punk as a genre)
Songwriting Quality:
Arrangement = 7/10
Lyricism = 4/10 (Somewhat simplistic lyrics)
Instrumentation Quality:
Vocal Timbre = 6.5/10 (Fantastic emotive singing when Iggy Pop wants to but overall seems lazy)
Instrumental Timbre = 7.5/10 (Great instrument sound minus the heavy distortion)
Group Chemistry = 9/10
Overall Likability:
My Personal Rating = 6.5/10
Overall Rating: 6.95/10
Any confusion on how the rating is weighted/calculated, please look at my "About" page.
Remember this is all my opinion! Let me know if you agree, disagree or have any comments!