275: THE STOOGES

The Stooges is the eponymous debut studio album by American rock band the Stooges, released on August 5, 1969 by Elektra Records. Considered a landmark proto-punk release,  the album peaked at number 106 on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The songs "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "1969" were released as singles from the album; "1969" was featured on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" at number 35.

For their first album, the Stooges had intended to record seven songs: "Dance Of The Romance", "Goodbye Bozos", "I’m Sick", "Asthma Attack", "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "No Fun", and "1969".[citation needed] “Asthma Attack” was a completely different composition than the version of the song utilizing the same song title that appears on the album reissue.[citation needed] According to Iggy Pop, '”Asthma Attack” was a structured piece of repetitive descending chording that sounded a lot like “Interstellar Overdrive.”'(Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd song) He elaborates further, 'And it was B, A, G, E (the chord structure) like a (The) Who thing - and then I would wheeze and say, “asthma attack.”'[citation needed] Embryonic versions of all seven songs were initially written from mid-late 1968 & early 1969. These seven songs were staples—and essentially the basis—of the Stooges' 1968 & early 1969 live set at the time.[citation needed] A typical Stooges song of the period[according to whom?] would involve either two minutes of composed song followed by several minutes of improvisation or avant-garde, free-form workouts. Having assumed that the seven songs as normally performed would cover requirements for the album, the Stooges were told by their record label Elektra that they needed more material.[citation needed] According to Iggy Pop, "We auditioned [the seven-song version of the album] live in the studio and they refused it. Jac Holzman, head of Elektra Records is quoted having said, 'There aren't enough songs that contain structured lead vocals!' So we lied and said, 'That's OK, we've got lots more proper songs.' Upon hearing this Holzman then indicated to the band that they had one week to record and prepare the album." Within the week the group was able to complete the task the label requested and wrote four more songs, "We Will Fall" (based upon a musical chant by Dave Alexander), "Real Cool Time", "Not Right", and "Little Doll" (based upon new guitar riffs written by Ron Asheton during the week of the recording sessions), and after John Cale informed the band that they needed “One more song to complete the album”, Iggy revised "Ann" (the first song he wrote for The Stooges that was initially discarded by the band in 1968). At the same time shedding two of the four avant-garde, free-form songs (shedding the original version for the new free-form version of "Asthma Attack" and "Dance Of The Romance" now subsumed into the old composition "Ann" tacked on as a musical coda after the main structure of the song) including "I’m Sick" and “Goodbye Bozos” and playing the new compositions for the first time in the studio.[citation needed]

An initial mix by producer John Cale, apparently resembling ex-Velvet Underground bandmate Lou Reed's "closet mix" of that band's eponymous third album from the same year, was rejected by Elektra. The mix as heard on the final product was done by Iggy Pop and Elektra president Jac Holzman. Four of Cale's original mixes would later appear on the bonus disc of a 2005 reissued version, with pitch correction applied to them. Five years later, all eight Cale mixes were released unaltered on the first disc of a 2010 collector's edition release of the album. Read more