The Stooges / YMMV

Broken Base: In 1997, Iggy remixed Raw Power and made it A LOT LOUDER AND HEAVIER (technically speaking, it is the loudest album EVER) in response to fans complaints that David Bowie's rushed original mix was too thin. A lot of people came crawling back to the Bowie mix. On the other hand, some fans thought the mix, even as punishing as it was, was more faithful to Iggy's original vision.
- The base is much less broken over the remaster of Iggy's remix, available on a 2012 vinyl release. This eliminates the Loudness War tendencies of the original remix and probably comes the closest to sounding how the album was intended to sound all along. Perhaps a case of Keep Circulating the Tapes.
- Also, in reality, the 1997 Raw Power isn't quite the loudest album ever (though it may be the loudest release by a well-known rock band on a major label); The Axis of Perdition's full-length début is 0.1 dB louder than it, mostly because the band didn't know what they were doing when mastering it. Additionally, Merzbow's Venerology is probably also louder; it has an RMS value of 0.00 dB on "I Lead You Towards Glorious Times", which may be the loudest song ever pressed to CD, and the other tracks aren't far behind (for comparison, the average RMS value on the Raw Power remix is around -2.4 dB, with the worst offender being "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" at -0.94 dB). Some of Merzbow's other releases from around the same time (particularly Pulse Demon) weren't much quieter. Another album that qualifies as louder than Iggy's Raw Power remix is The Psychic Paramount's Gamelan into the Mink Supernatural.
Covered Up: Iggy's 1977 song "China Girl" from The Idiot (co-written with David Bowie) is much more well-known as a 1983 single by Bowie. The covering up was ultimately pretty beneficial to the original artist, which may have been the point: Iggy Pop was nearing bankruptcy and struggling with addiction at the time, and receiving substantial royalties for the Bowie version helped him out financially.
- To a certain extent, Sex Pistols' cover of "No Fun".
Cover Version: One of many bands to make "Louie Louie" their own.
Epic Riff: Several, but "I Wanna Be Your Dog" from The Stooges (Album) probably takes the cake.
Even Better Sequel: Fun House is a notable aversion to the Sophomore Slump, being considered much better than their debut. If Raw Power isn't a Stooges fan's favorite album, it's usually this one.
Gateway Series: Along with The Velvet Underground, the band is a major gateway into Protopunk.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- The band pretty much launched Punk Rock in Britain, along with fellow American bands The Velvet Underground and The New York Dolls.
- The band also had a strong following in Australia, laying the groundwork for the country's own punk scene, with the band Radio Birdman taking its name from a misheard lyric in "1970".
Hilarious in Hindsight: During his junior high school days, Iggy was voted "Most likely to succeed" by his classmates. Well, he and the Stooges did play a key role in kickstarting one of the most important genres of the past 50 years, so they probably weren't wrong.
Moment of Awesome: Numerous - right up to their legendary final show, which music critics have likened to a snuff film - but Iggy essentially inventing crowd-surfing stands out and provides one of the band's most iconic images (4:14).
Nightmare Fuel: For the love of God, DON'T listen to "We Will Fall" at night...
- "L.A. Blues" is a veritable goldmine.
Retroactive Recognition:
- Dead Boys vocalist Stiv Bators claimed that he was the one who supplied the peanut butter Iggy smeared himself with at the 1970 Cincinnati Pop Festival.
- Keyboardist Scott Thurston, who joined the band after the recording of Raw Power, would much later pop up as steady member of Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers.
Once Original, Now Common: The band and Iggy may be hailed as elder statesmen of punk today, but their performances terrified audiences at the time.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: How some fans felt about the Raw Power remix.
Vindicated by History: Their albums flopped on release and they were generally hated by critics, but all three of the band's original albums were in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

YMMV / The Stooges

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