The Stooges

The Stooges may have aged, but at least they haven't matured. Iggy Pop sings about his balls in the first song, Ron Asheton picks harmonic tones on his guitar in "You Can't Have Friends," and "Mexican Guy" sounds like it could be an outtake from 1970's Fun House until Iggy starts whining that his girl ran off with -- you guessed it -- a Mexican guy. But hey, it's the Stooges! And at the end of the day, it still sounds like the Stooges, just older and, thanks to Steve Albini, cleaner. We're not saying he should've mixed them to sound like the '70s, but -- OK, we are totally saying that.

Something about Iggy Pop brings out the beast in guitar players. On the first two Stooges
albums, he drove Ron Asheton to turn his wah-wah into a flamethrower. Then, on the 1973
comeback, Raw Power, he goaded James Williamson into playing a lifetime reputation's
worth of shredded-skull brain-aflame leads. Even David Bowie got the bug while producing
Iggy's 1977 solo debut, The Idiot, an album prized by Bowie freaks because it's t... More >