The Stooges- Raw Power
This album is too rich. Like, imagine a pound cake. One slice is fine, but then someone tells you have to finish the whole thing. And even that might be fine for about halfway, but then you start slowing down and getting sick.
That’s this album: a dense pound cake of an album that I can only stand for three or four slices before I start shaking from the sugar and my stomach starts getting queasy.
Cake based metaphors aside, this album is packed full of punk and energy. Every single chord is played like the guitarist thought it’d be his last. Not even his last, but the last ever to be played. It’s the end of the world baby, let’s have some fun.
That kind of hedonism is fun, but its ultimately self destructive. Iggy seems to know this but not particularly care. He’s heading to the brink and only someone else can stop him (I like to read the line “Somebody gotta save my soul” as “Somebody ELSE gotta save my soul”).
There’s also something of the hedonism you sometimes find in blues in here, as well as some of the macho posturing. Iggy is a big fan of the blues and there are certain tracks, “I Need Somebody” especially, when that is put to good use.
Iggy’s full range is on full display. At least, I hope it’s his full range as anyone who can do more than he does on this album can’t be quite human. His voice and attitude range from righteous anger, to resigned nihilism, to pitiful longing. The phrase “tour de force” comes to mind.
Now imagine everything I just mentioned, all the things I said that sounded so complimentary, and imagine them packed into every single song. It starts to get overwhelming, and a bit much.
3/5 Listen to it if you like punk. If you don’t like punk, take it a slice at a time. “Search and Destroy” is a great song, but you might have to be a young teenage boy to really vibe with it (there was a time when I felt like “The world’s forgotten boy”). A lot of very smart people like this album, and I think on a certain level I do, but I can’t throw my lot in with the people that embrace it.