Believe it or not, Iggy Pop was not born Iggy Pop….. I KNOW, the name sounds so authentic! One, James Newell Osterberg, Jr., couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate name. He is the iguana of pop. A skinny frame ripped with veins and almost translucent skin stretched over toned muscles that have seen many a sun burnt day on stage.

Pop has always been the underdog. He’s never had the commercial success that so many of his peers reached, but few would challenge his effect on music. The godfather of rock excess, punk and garage. These two reissues recount his early years in The Stooges. As a result of the Garage phenomenon, these albums have finally started receiving the overwhelming critical and public acclaim they so deserve.

Both albums are equally important, and to state which is superior is an argument that has caused many a drunken bar brawl. It’s irrelevant and up to personal choice. The debut “The Stooges” sees the band release an album that was to give birth to countless genres. You have to realise, that this was the flower child hippie bullshit era of 1969. People were about as ready for Iggy, as they were to cut their hair and buy a suit. The Stooges didn’t win fans over with songs of unison and peace, but forced people to follow them in aggression and dissilusionment.

They were at the peak of the rock summit, with imitators already springing up since the debut, when they released Fun House a year later in 1970. Everything they had built up with the debut was systematically eviscerated, dragged out on the street and left for scraps. This was end of the world, suicide on the ghost train music. Completely bereft with hope, anger seems to be the only answer left as the album spews aggression. It’s effectively a live album recorded in a studio – with the band left to play like they would live, and use the best take.

There’s a damned simple equation for these two albums. Pay attention now children, and don’t be offended.

The Stooges = A band reputedly on LSD.

Fun House = A band reputedly on heroin.

You choose. DO ROCK STARS USE DRUGS??? (*GASP*)!!!

Reissuing also leads to an interesting question. Surely to remaster such classics to make them cleaner and less raw takes away from the originals? Punk spawned as a backlash to the over-inflated wankerry of prog. It looked to albums such as these two and latched onto the simplistic core music (there are no 6 minute solos here) and basic production. Part of the importance of these to albums was the fact that they were stripped. It didn’t sound like it had been passed through £24million pounds of studio equipment. Yes, Iggy Pop isn’t a great singer, but it was this raw ferocity that made these albums great. Resultanly the albums have lost part of their context and have become sterile, clean, clinical watered down versions of the originals. Why? Well, with record companies being record companies, and consumers being consumers, a nice new CD with neat little packaging is more likely to shift than that tatty old copy sitting at the back gathering dust with its sunfaded cover.

These discs are as much a history lesson as they are great listens. If you don’t own these discs, but somewhere have a White Stripes or a Hives album, you should be shot. That’s how simple and mandatory these discs are. So why not buy the originals? Well – either way you will be doing yourself no disrespect. The originals are like seeing Star Wars debut on the big screen, whilst the re-issues are like getting the DVD with all the missing scenes, extras and side salad stuff you only watch if you’re a hardcore anorak fan.

To cut out all the bullshit, there is a solid pre-requisite for a reissue of a CD. The album needs to be astounding! The extras, the ulternate packaging, the alternate production is primarily irrelevant, the albums remain primarily the same. The tracks are venomously beautiful, and stand up 35 years later. Anyone who likes rock owes it to themselves to own these CD’s, whether they be the originals or the reissues. You choose. Rhino & Elektra have been kind enough to re-release these on August 26 th… go consume.

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