The Stooges

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The Stooges

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This album still thrills me, lo these many years later. When Iggy barks at Ron Asheton to "tell 'em how I feel!" with the heavy emphasis on the "I", Asheton reels off into one of my favorite guitar solos of all time: desperate, fuzzed-out and wah-wah heavy, spiraling and spinning until you KNOW how Iggy feels!This stuff sounds utterly spontaneous, almost as if they made it up on the spot, which is probably not far from the truth. I saw these guys right after Fun House came out, and they were the loudest, most intense dada-like band imaginable. Sonic Youth later stole their act. If you like your rock and roll primal, this one is it. Ron Asheston steals the show from the Ig.

The packaging is 5-stars (a great, hard-backed "book" which is the size of the 7" record). Included is a 7" record of the one of the titles on the discs (rather than a vintage reproduction, rendering it pointless), and on those 2 CDs there are three versions of the classic, self-titled first Stooges albums:

1. the official release;

2. the original John Cale mix; and

3. the entire album again, this time, alternate versions or non-truncated versions, and a very rare 1968 track in great sound.

So what's wrong with that? In the case of #1 and #3, nothing. These are great tracks, including nearly an hour's worth of rarely-heard material. Unfortunately #2, the original Cale mix, is a deal-killer. Rhino was utterly asleep when they made this as the speed is oh so very s-l-o-w. It's as if no one bothered to listen to what they were releasing or were too stupid to know just how painfully slow it is... point-blank unlistenable. Additionally, and as a previous reviewer pointed out, the alternate version of I Wanna Be Your Dog inexplicably cuts off before the track ends without explanation, while a previous incarnation of this track did not.

The official explanation from Rhino was they just released what they found in the vaults "as-is" for historic value. Seriously?!

A must avoid... if nothing else, to let Rhino know they need to actually bother to listen before releasing material as a high-priced collector edition. FYI, I was also informed Rhino horribly botched their New Order collector's set as well. Apparently, this is an on-going problem for this once great and now incredibly tone-deaf label.

Get the correctly-pitched 2005 edition instead.