The Stooges (180 Gram Vinyl)

The Stooges: Iggy Stooge (vocals); Ron Asheton (guitar); Dave Alexander (bass); Scott Asheton (drums). Additional personnel: John Cale (violin). Includes liner notes by Danny Fields. The Stooges hurled themselves headfirst into 1969 with a debut so sonically ferocious that only one-time Velvet Underground member John Cale could do it justice as a producer. With a full-scale feedback punch, The Stooges' musical bite tore its way towards punk and what would later be called grunge. Fully embracing the idioms of teenage life, THE STOOGES coined previously unmentioned terms of adolescent angst. "No Fun," "Not Right," and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" gave vocabulary to the post-hippie generation yearning to voice its dissatisfaction. The opening track, "1969," built off the teen-angst of "Summertime Blues" but offered the simplest breakdown of powerlessness to date. "Another year for me and you," says Iggy Stooge, "another year with nothing to do." The Stooges' triumph was in converting the confusion and desires of teenage life into chaotic, three-chord bliss. Often mimicked, but never equalled, THE STOOGES was the call for a new era of rock.