The Stooges – ‘Raw Power’
The Stooges had one more shot. They were thousands of miles away from their home city of Detroit, Michigan, when they stumbled into CBS Studios in London. Their lineup had been shuffled around, much to the chagrin of certain band members. Their name had been changed to emphasize their frontman, Iggy Pop. They were on a controlling contract and only managed to get signed in the first place as a pet project of another famous rock star. But despite all of that, The Stooges were still ready to give it all they had… and then they blew it.
In the decades since its release, Raw Power hasn’t become popular, but it has become legendarily infamous. The final record from urtext proto-punks The Stooges had notorious stories that followed its production from the second it was released in early 1973. For later generations, tales of muddy mixes, horrendous heroin habits, label-mandated ballads, and bong-assisted special effects have all added a certain mystique to Raw Power. But there was no allure or warm feelings when Raw Power bombed hard in the crowded scene of early 1970s hard rock.
The original Stooges lineup flamed out after releasing just two studio albums, 1969’s The Stooges and 1970’s Fun House. Original bassist Dave Alexander had been fired due to his excessive alcohol use, and Pop’s childhood friend James Williamson had been added as a second guitar player for a few months before the group was dropped by Elektra Records. Just two months after their official dissolution, Pop ran into up-and-coming British singer David Bowie at Max’s Kansas City in New York. The pair hit it off, and Bowie convinced Pop to sign with his management team, MainMan.
After securing a record deal from Columbia Records, Bowie recruited Williamson to fly over to London and record what was meant to be Pop’s debut solo album. When Pop and Williamson failed to find musicians who suited their highly aggressive style, it was decided that only two people could help make bring the new music to life: former Stooges band members Ron and Scott Asheton.
Some changes had to be made once the Ashetons agreed to reform The Stooges. For one, they weren’t The Stooges anymore: they were Iggy and the Stooges. To go along with the titular demotion, Ron Asheton was asked to switch from his former role as lead guitarist to bassist in order to accommodate Williamson. The new working method made the Ashetons feel like second-class citizens in the band that they had originally founded, and the already volatile personalities within the band began to clash almost immediately.
Even worse, the group’s record contract (which favoured Pop over the other band members) had strict stipulations. One of them was that the band had to record a ballad on each side of their album. Not known for their delicate side, The Stooges holed themselves up in the studio and rehearsed diligently. By September 1972, the band had eight tracks (including their two ballads) ready to record.
Blasting off with the unrelenting ‘Seach and Destroy’, Raw Power is 33 minutes of unfiltered and unadorned lo-fi chaos. With amplifiers cranked to their highest settings and Pop at his most unhinged, the album has the kind of energy and belligerence that would become essential to punk rock music just a few years later. Even the ballads, ‘Gimme Danger’ and ‘I Need Somebody’, are unrelenting. The former has a palpable menace and darkness that contrasts its acoustic guitars and celeste instrumentation, while the latter is little more than a ragged blues shuffle.
Filling out the rest of the album are some of the wildest and least restrained songs ever released on a major label. ‘Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell’ features Pop’s most guttural vocal performance ever captured, while ‘Shake Appeal’ and ‘Raw Power’ tap into the band’s love of old-school rock and roll, filtered through their warped sense of style. Each side of the album ends with an ominous meditation on depravity, ‘Penetration’ and ‘Death Trip’.
When it came time to mix the album, Pop attempted the first go around by himself. The results were haphazard at best, requiring intervention from the band’s management. They informed Pop that Bowie would remix the album, which he did in a single day, and that the results would be released as the final cut. Between Pop and Bowie’s handling of the mixes, Raw Power became one of the murkiest, dirtiest, and least pristine albums in the history of rock music. With no time or budget left, Bowie’s mix became the version of Raw Power that most listeners heard if they bought the album in 1973.
The only problem was that not many people bought Raw Power. Peaking at just number 183 on the Billboard 200 album chart, Raw Power was the third commercially unsuccessful Stooges album in a row. With drug use once again coming to the fore, The Stooges set out to tour behind Raw Power, only to come across the same obstacles that blocked their original incarnation. With Columbia reneging on their two-album deal and MainMan putting their focus solely on Bowie, The Stooges were largely left to their own devices.
Almost exactly a year to the day after Raw Power was officially released, The Stooges played what would be their final show back home in Detroit. Captured on the even more lo-fi live LP Metallic K.O., the band’s final show saw Pop turn against his hometown audience, leading the crowd to pelt the band with anything and everything that they could find around them. With that, The Stooges were officially done after a little over half a decade of failed albums, bad reviews, and no money to show for their efforts.
But just as they faded into oblivion, something strange began happening around The Stooges. In cities like New York and London, disaffected kids began listening to their albums and embracing their sound. Musicians like Johnny Ramone and Steve Jones learned how to play their instruments thanks to albums like Raw Power. Songwriters like Kurt Cobain and Nick Cave took valuable lessons from the stripped-back frankness of Pop’s lyrics. Noise rock acts like Sonic Youth and Big Black found direction in the aggression of Raw Power. Over the years, everyone from Slayer to Soundgarden to R.E.M. to CeeLo Green found solace and inspiration in the grooves of Raw Power. For an album that was by all accounts an abject failure, Raw Power really got around.
Additional remixes and reissues have attempted to craft the definitive version of Raw Power that seemed so elusive back in 1973. The reality is that nothing is ever going to make the album perfect: in its very DNA, Raw Power is about the appeal of desperation and degradation. It also has some of the wildest singing, most enthralling guitar riffs, and deepest grooves of any rock album ever released. Raw Power more than delivered on its title – it just took the rest of the world a few years, decades, and lifetimes to catch up.
