7th Feb - Iggy and The Stooges' Raw Power

Artist – Album: Iggy and the Stooges – Raw Power

Released:  7^th February 1973      

Sounds Like: Fire and theft

Nowadays Iggy Pop is better known for writhing around with his top off on car insurance adverts and for having a couple of good songs that soundtracked Trainspotting and, ahem, more adverts. But waaaayyy back before Swiftcover commercials, and even earlier than ‘Lust for Life’ or ‘The Passenger’, Iggy was the edgy frontman of proto-punk pioneers The Stooges.

This was their third and final album, the group finally disbanding after seven years of awful record sales and violent gigs but, like similarly underappreciated peers The Velvet Underground, their influence would be immeasurable and long-lasting.

The first track, ‘Search and Destroy’, is a belter. Driven by a repetitive cowbell and blistering power chords, Pop howls down the sky. Have a chew on this opening line “I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm”. The next song, “Gimme Danger”, is as back seat as the first is in your face, but it broods in its little corner, menacingly eyeing you up.

The whole album is full of tunes as threatening and exhilarating as the first couple. Despite its lack of commercial success on release, today it’s rightly regarded as one of the greatest. It may be as scary as that creepy little puppet thing on those irritating adverts but it’s much, much more appealing.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Search and Destroy – 3:29

2.       Gimme Danger – 3:33

3.       Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell – 4:54

4.       Penetration – 3:41

5.       Raw Power – 4:16

6.       I Need Somebody – 4:53

7.       Shake Appeal – 3:04

8.       Death Trip – 6:07

Listen to ‘Gimme Danger’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9_hegaKOaY