Iggy Pop & The Stooges - The Detroit Tapes FLAC album

This collection of rehearsal/studio stuff from immediately before and after the release of Raw Power is (at least in part) revelatory! First, the negative stuff: a few of the performances are a bit uninspired (a Stooges cover of 'I'm a Man' has no business being anything less than amazing, but ends up shit); some of the material isn't too great (Wild Love, Till the End of the Night); and 'Head On' - a fine tune, to be sure - has a weirdly 80s drum sound which just doesn't sit right with the Stooges. These caveats aside, pretty much the rest of the set is absolutely essential!! It's winningly lo-fi, but it's mastered for maximum gut-punch, and Williamson's steel-wool-in-yer-ears guitar tone really comes into its own in this kind of scuzzy set-up. You've got brutal early versions of Raw Power classics (Tight Pants), the definitive first-ever-Punk-song (I Got a Right) and, in general, the glorious, life-altering vision of the 'Raw Power' Stooges morphing into the Stones - but not the Stones as they actually sound in our imperfect world, but the ideal Platonic version of the Stones, i.e. the Stones as they would sound if they were mean, drug-addled lowlives who'd been weaned on the Velvets and disowned by their mothers. The majority of this set can be carved up into two styles: a cranked-up, repetitious roots-leaning shitfest (Scene of the Crime, Gimme Some Skin, Rubber Legs, Cock in my Pocket, Born in a Trailer) and an extension of the 'sick man's ballad' style introduced on Raw Power (Open Up and Bleed, Johanna, Cry For Me). If you have any interest in the Stooges, don't hesitate!