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Travis: In our last chat, we discussed Neil Young’s Harvest, a resounding critical and commercial success and the biggest selling album (in the U.S.) of 1972. This time, we’ll chew the fat on one of 1973’s biggest flops. Raw Power, the third(ish) album from Iggy Pop’s Stooges (kind of) was a massive commercial failure and, except for a few voices on the fringes of rock’n’roll writing, a critical dud, even in comparison to the low-selling and mostly ignored first two Stooges albums.

Like many under-the-radar albums of the time, though, it became a cult classic despite its unheralded origins, the kind of album that not many people heard, but many of those who did went on to start bands and ape its loud, fast, proto-punk style. Produced by David Bowie, one of Iggy Pop’s first champions, it is now regarded as an underground classic, a mission statement for a new movement reviving the simplicity of the original rock and rollers and injecting it with distortion and nihilism. 

I have loved this album for more than twenty years, and revisit it often even now. Listening to it in preparation for our chat felt like putting on an old coat, comfortable and comforting even if it might be a little ratty and smelly. Had you ever listened to Raw Power before?

Tyler: I had not. I’ve known of Iggy, and reckon he’s one of the good guys (?), but my exposure to his and Stooges’ work was minimal heading into our venture. I did know the song “Butt Town,” from an immortal Beavis & Butt-head interlude.

That noted, I was excited when you suggested we look at Raw Power. Felt a long time coming.

Travis: A little backstory: The Stooges came out of the same hard-hitting Michigan rock scene as the MC5, as influenced by the noise of industry and radical politics as the Motor City R&B that preceded them. Their first, self-titled album, took a lot of influence from the Doors and the Velvet Underground as well as early rock and roll. Their second album, Fun House, was more improvisational, with its iconic title track integrating free-jazz into their acidic garage rock flavor. The band had a cult following, due in part to those albums but mostly to Iggy Pop’s confrontational frontman performances, where he’d roll on broken glass, fight audience members, and the like. After Fun House, the Stooges sort of broke up, and Iggy managed to secure a solo record deal for himself. He began working with James Williamson, a guitar player who’d flitted in and out of the Stooges orbit, writing the songs that would eventually become Raw Power, and securing Bowie as a producer. When they couldn’t find a rhythm section in London (where they were recording) that fit their style, they enlisted brothers and former Stooges Ron and Scott Asheton on bass and drums, the new/old group billed as Iggy and the Stooges rather than just the Stooges.

In comparison to the previous albums, Raw Power is, for all its noise and distortion, a big step-up in terms of songwriting, playing, and vocal performance. It comes out of the gate swinging with “Search and Destroy” (which you may have heard in a Nike Olympics commercial in the 90s, or remember from Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lester Bangs taking over the radio broadcast in Almost Famous) and doesn’t let up for eight songs in a little over a half an hour.

What were your first impressions when the shit came in?

Tyler: Oh, it took about four seconds for me to decide “I see. This is obviously going to shred.”

Shred it does. I kept thinking “How did this not sell?” It’s so obviously awesome.

Raw Power rocks, gets weird, gets spooky, all while staying lean and mean and on point and comparatively quick. No slight feats, any.

Travis: Yeah, I don’t get why it didn’t sell either, other than that maybe the world wasn’t ready for it yet. In 1973 you had Black Sabbath mining some of the same sonic territory, but as much as I love them, I don’t think they had the same feral abandon.

As in one of our previous discussions, of Nada Surf’s The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy, I think the opening track is the clear winner here. “Search and Destroy” is maybe the platonic ideal of a rock and roll song, propulsive and loud and nihilistic and distorted and powerful, but catchy enough to sing along. Iggy snarls his way through the sort of self-mythology the early rockers and howling bluesmen did and makes it convincing and terrifying. I believe he is a “streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm, the runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb.” I believe he’s “the world’s forgotten boy.” Williamson’s guitar work cuts through all bullshit. I fuckin’ love it.

Tyler: I love it too. Takes mere moments to establish the album as a force of nature. It is searing.

I really dig the contrast with its follow-up, “Gimme Danger,” which is comparatively hushed, but further entrenches that spookiness.

Travis: “Gimme Danger” to me mines some of the same territory that the Stones were at the time, at their most nihilistically druggy in the scarier bits of Sticky Fingers and Exile. A complaint a lot of critics have about punk is that it removed the sex from rock and roll and Iggy and the Stooges definitely do not do that.

I’d also throw “Penetration” in that discussion—it’s always reminded me of an even darker “Under My Thumb.”

Tyler: “Penetration” is mesmerizing. Personal favorite.

Travis: I think it’s a truly scary song, made even moreso by its relative lack of volume after “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell” (a great song title, it should be noted).

A note on “Gimme Danger”: it is one of two Stooges songs performed by Ewan MacGregor as Iggy stand-in “Curt Wilde” in Velvet Goldmine.

Tyler: Does Ewan pull it off?

Travis: He does, in the context of the movie. If I remember correctly, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth is playing guitar on that one. Just one of six million noisy guitarists who would not exist without this album.

Tyler: Can you speak to the differences between the classic Bowie mix and the “Iggy mix?” To my ear, in Iggy’s version, the vocals felt clearer and less smeared over.

Not necessarily to the album’s benefit.

Travis: I prefer the Iggy mix, which may be blasphemy to historians but critical opinions are about half-and half. I think the vocals and the bass sound better in Iggy’s mix. I don’t think you can go wrong with either one. Something I learned while researching for our chat today anticipating this being a point of discussion was that the Iggy mix was executive produced by Bruce Dickinson, not the Iron Maiden singer, but the legendary producer played by Christopher Walken in the More Cowbell sketch.

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Also you hear the creepy little celeste better in “Penetration” in Iggy’s mix.

Tyler: I’d like to highlight “I Need Somebody.” It’s got this leering lurch to it. There’s that sex you’re talking about.

Travis: I love the acoustic and electric playing the same riff together on that one. That feels like Bowie influence—a lot of the songs on Ziggy Stardust use that trick to great effect.

This is a no-skip album for me, but I feel like the songs we’ve mentioned like “Gimme Danger”, “Penetration,” “I Need Somebody” add needed variety amidst the up-tempo onslaught of songs like “Raw Power”, “Shake Appeal” (that sped-up rockabilly riff always gets me) and the monolithic closer, “Death Trip.” This version of the Stooges is not a one-trick pony. It’s a skilled rock and roll band playing variations on a style.

A note on “Shake Appeal.” There was this panel show on VH1 where six celebrities would nominate songs and then they’d discuss and vote them off. I do not remember the name of this show. But I do remember on one episode, Angelo Moore of Fishbone was on and nominated “Shake Appeal” for whatever category it was. His reasoning? “The song rocks.”

I think Sammy Hagar voted it off.

Tyler: Oh, for God’s sake.

“Death Trip” is colossal. An unexpectedly epic album-closer.

Travis: Big-ass riffs on that one.

Tyler: Ain’t much—anything—to tear down here.

Travis: Yeah, I don’t have any complaints. At points in my life, I have considered this a desert island album. Listening to it again in depth over the past couple of weeks, I’d have to think hard about how many albums I’d pick over it.

Tyler: Would you pick any Bowie albums over it? That might be an unfair question.

Travis: Hmm, maybe Ziggy Stardust. I don’t know. I’d pick Bowie’s collective catalog over Iggy’s for sure, but I can’t definitively say I think he has an album more perfect than this one.

The two of them had a more commercially fruitful collaboration later on. The Idiot and Lust for Life, both Iggy solo albums released in 1977 at the height of punk hysteria in Britain, were both produced by Bowie, and he had a heavier hand in their creation than he did in Raw Power. The Idiot is reminiscent of Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, robotic and claustrophobic. Lust for Life is more lively, with at least three great songs in the title track (perfectly used to open Trainspotting), “Some Weird Sin,” and “The Passenger.” Both albums are essential for fans of Iggy, Bowie, or both.

The Idiot was also the first appearance of “China Girl,” which Bowie would record himself as a single appearing on “Let’s Dance” later on, and give Iggy his first big hit as a songwriter.

Speaking of British punk hysteria, at least two songs from Raw Power became standards for the early English punk bands when they were starting out playing covers, “Raw Power” and “Search and Destroy,” along with other Stooges songs like “No Fun,” “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” and “TV Eye.”

The first two Stooges albums are also essential. They are sloppier, stranger than Raw Power. They hadn’t really learned to play yet. But they get by on attitude.

A charming curiosity which I also think makes a good followup to Raw Power is Kill City, an album credited to Iggy Pop and James Williamson, recorded as demos in 1975 and released in 1977 when Lust for Life and The Idiot were in the charts.

Iggy’s catalog after 1977 varies widely in style and quality. The aforementioned “Butt Town” is one of many missteps. But there are a few other gems in there, too. As with anyone who’s been recording music for 50-plus years, the listenability mileage will vary.

Tyler: How about the Stooges reunion album, The Weirdness?

Travis: I have literally never heard it.

I will also note that I saw Iggy live in 2001. “Search and Destroy” was the second song in the set and tore the venue apart. Later on, he talked shit on Social Distortion, who was playing at the venue next door, then invited the whole crowd on stage to sing along to “The Passenger.” At no point was he wearing a shirt, or shoes.

Tyler: That is supernaturally cool.

Travis: Not essential: Iggy’s performance as the villain in the sequel The Crow: City of Angels.

Tyler: A classic!

Travis: As of 2024, he’s still bangin’, performing live with and without the Stooges (who once again include James Williamson), making new albums and collaborating with whoever he feels like, including recent albums with Josh Homme and assorted Queens of the Stone Age members, Underworld (the electronic act behind “Born Slippy”, the closing song in Trainspotting), and experimental ambient guitarist Sarah Lipstate. That collab with Underworld has a hilarious song in which he does a stream of consciousness ramble about trying to pick up a stewardess on a long flight.

Tyler: Man, here’s to Iggy. Talk about a rock ‘n roll stalwart.

Travis: He credits his longevity to yoga.

Tyler: He’s probably right.

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