The Stooges: Fun House [ELEKTRA]

Why you'll love it

This reissue comes in a gatefold jacket with the original Elektra butterfly labels. Fun House is one of the founding documents of punk rock, sitting between the band's debut and Raw Power.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• Original Elektra butterfly labels
• Pressed in Germany
• Stereo mix

About the album

Producer Don Gallucci saw the Stooges live and told Elektra he didn't think you could get that feeling on tape. Then he worked out how. After one polite day of baffles and studio microphones at Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in May 1970, he and the band stripped the room bare, set up as they would on stage, and handed Iggy Pop a handheld mic. They cut a song a day, in album order, rarely needing more than four takes.

The result is about as close to standing in front of the amps as vinyl gets. "Down on the Street" and "Loose" hit like a door being kicked in, "T.V. Eye" is pure menace, and "Dirt" slows things into a slinking, smouldering groove. On side two the saxophone joins in and "1970" and the title track spiral outward until "L.A. Blues" collapses into glorious free-form noise. Iggy has said the blues of Howlin' Wolf was right there in his head on this one.

Ron Asheton put it simply: their limited ability demanded it be loud. Without the usual isolation baffles, the bass amp makes the snare drum rattle on several songs, and frankly we'd list that under features.

Also at Kops: more The Stooges on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Elektra / Rhino (cat# R1 74071), a reissue of the 1970 album.