Music Arcades: Iggy and the Stooges: Raw Power

This is one of those albums that I bought on the strength of its reputation rather than any conviction that I was going to fall in love with it. I was already 34 going on 35 by then, and maybe that was too late?

At first I tried listening to this with the Boy yesterday evening, just before putting him to bed. Not a good idea. I kept turning the volume down lower and lower to avoid getting him into a tizzy. Yet even the 34-minute brevity of the album was two tracks too long. And, uncharacteristically, the Boy took ages to get to sleep.

Maybe if I'd been half of 34 going on 35, or even half the age I am now, I could have got inside the Raw Power. But by the time I got to listen to this properly, I could only hear it through the filter of all the music and musicians who'd taken its influence to heart. Hell, the intervening generation have taken it so much to heart that Julian Cope's sidekick, Holy McGrail (ha… ha), has even produced a postmodern tribute, Raw Power Suite. That's what my ears are up against.

What's more this is the remixed and repackaged 1997 version of Raw Power we're dealing with. "Contains in depth interview with Iggy and unpublished photos." It's the first re-issue I've come across that has a celebrity "executive producer" in the shape of Bruce Dickinson. What's that about then? It makes you wonder if, despite all the protestations to the contrary in the in depth interview, the record company didn't really trust Iggy to have the final say. Though Iggy gives us his reassuring endorsement, "Everything's still in the red, it's a very violent mix." Phew.

RIP Ron Asheton, guitar/bass Stooge, who died earlier today. He sounds like he meant it, all right.