Iggy & the Stooges

Raw Power (Legacy Edition) (Columbia)

By Sarah Collins
Published: May 4th, 2010 | 7:00am

My first car was a 1988 Ford Mustang, gunmetal grey, with a front end that was all engine and a back end lacking working seatbelts. It was a car for tearing ass, screeching tires, and blasting Raw Power through the open windows. Nothing else could be the theme song of such a beast.

Georgia Peaches, disc two of the newly-released Legacy Edition of Raw Power, would have been a welcome addition piping through the tape deck. The bulk of it is a live show from 1973 at Richards in Atlanta, the songs cut up by Pop’s exhilaratingly nasty taunts hurled at hecklers. The muddied-up take on “I Need Somebody” is pure swagger, and Scott Thurston’s keyboards give the set a bit of boozy, bar-band tinkle.

The remastered version of Raw Power, however, will likely not make it in the Mustang. While it’s nice to hear Bowie’s unaltered take on the tracks, it lacks some of the joy of the original crappy, compressed mix. Raw Power is a dirty record; it should be a little scummy and buzzy. Bowie’s mixes have clean, audible vocals and lower volume—great traits that just don’t belong on a Stooges records. The live set has all of the nasty production and unfortunate distortion, as do the two unreleased tracks tacked onto the end—although “Doojiman” is the kind of studio dicking-around no one needs to hear.

The reissue is worthwhile just for the moment halfway through Peaches where Pop addresses an audience member with an even threat: “I’m never gonna slow down for you, honey.” Thirty-seven years later, that promise is still kept.

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