The Stooges
Ian Fortnam
Fun House 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition RHINO
Indispensible over seven tracks, not so essential over 159.
A half-century on and we’re still riding the ripples of The Stooges’ second album. It’s a beautiful thing, a seven-track study in the feral and unhinged. Essentially, but for its rock-friendly elements (guitar, bass, drums, vocals, attitude), it’s a record that’s got far more in common with the free interpretations of contemporary jazz than with the uniform strictures of the punk scene that it apparently sired. Against the brute minimalism of the rock-solid yet instinctively fluid Stooges, Iggy Pop’s voice extemporises, blurts, explores and punctuates like Miles’s trumpet, framing the future by defying convention. In its original incarnation, it’s perfect. So how better to celebrate its golden anniversary than by bulking it out with all the stuff you were never meant to hear? Of course, it’s all been out before on CD, but with the rebirth of vinyl comes a marketing opportunity that’s simply too good to miss.