My Amazon Reviews: The Stooges "The Stooges"

Three stars for the music plus a bonus star for the influence 
4 Out Of 5 Stars 

"So it's 1969, Okaaaaaay?" howls Iggy Pop in the first song on one of the most notorious albums ever released. The Stooges were the anti-band, the angry answer to hippie-lovefests and Woodstock. There was no peace and love vibe to be found here. The result was, to underplay the influence somewhat, a revolution. Other than fellow underground types, "The Stooges" was either ignored or derided.

Personally, I didn't discover them until I was in college. It's easy to see why 1969 listeners blew their noses all over this album. John Cale treated The Stooges as if were arty like the Velvet Underground, but no-one in The Stooges was that sophisticated. Ron Ashton wields a primal guitar, heavy of fuzz and wah-wah, long of unruly solos. Iggy sneers and snarls like a million bored and angry teenagers; both "1969" and "No Fun" are as basic an Eff-You to the world as it gets. It would take The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash to pull Iggy and The Stooges after them in their wake, but for good reason. Nobody was making records like this then.

The hypnotic sleigh-bells that drive "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" finds drummer Scott Asheton and bassist Dave Alexander pounding out some kind of mutant Bo Diddly beat while Iggy barks

"So messed up, I want you here
In my room, I want you here
Now we're gonna be Face-to-face
And I'll lay right down
In my favorite place.
And now I wanna Be your dog."

I always wondered if the Ramones swiped "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" from "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" (which Joan Jett dug enough to cover). The fact that it's taken almost 40 years to get the full Stooges discography updated and re-issued tells you how long their influence gestated among the Punks in the late 70's You still have to listen to some really off the wall tracks even by The Stooges standards, like the ten minute psychedelic drone of "We Will Fall" to get to the good stuff, but the best of what's here shows just how far ahead of their time "The Stooges" is.