The Stooges – THE STOOGES*

1969/I Wanna Be Your Dog/We Will Fall/No Fun/Real Cool Time/Ann/Not Right/Little Doll

What does music sound like without a trace of creativity? The answer is that it sounds like the first Stooges LP. This is nihilism for its own sake which, to the credit of critics of the time, got very short thrift in the sixties. Future punters would not be so fortunate in their music establishment approved trendsetters.

“I found that something was fundamentally missing with The Stooges self-titled debut. Just where is this 'energy' I keep hearing of? Iggy Pop just doesn't do anything and I find almost everything here severely lacking. We Will Fall is dreary and boring and again doesn't do anything exciting.”

“The music is a distorted and noisy kind of hard rock and is understandably called proto punk by many. The snarling attitude is certainly there, and considering the album was released in 1969 it’s at times a quite extreme hard rock album. In contrast with the predominantly short and aggressive tunes, the album also features the ten minutes long We Will Fall, an exercise that is chanting, repetitive and bleak.”

“This was the first Stooges album and it put me off from them for quite a long time. Just too boring. The music ideas in this one go nowhere. The best song and a great one on here is No Fun, but after that none of them are really that memorable.”

“To claim that this is the first punk record requires no real effort, chronological technicalities be-damned. Rarely does the group surpass the two chord mark in these songs, and when they do, they rely on power chords.”

“This album will mainly appeal to anyone who spent years sniffing paint fumes as a youth, or is catatonically depressed for whatever reason, or has a sub-70 IQ.”

“The Stooges' debut is an essential listen - it sounds so wonderfully out of sync with the late sixties music scene, and the first five tracks are genuine works of garage rock genius. Back in the day, the gritty realism of The Stooges failed to turn many heads. Why listen to a song about how boring 1969 is when you can listen to a much more relevant song about a talking gnome or a china cat sunflower?”

“Sorry, I really don’t get this one. While I absolutely love Fun House, I can't help but think that the reason this one is rated so highly must be due to revisionism.”