The Stooges were the borther band of the MC5 from Detroit, and probably the better of the two. They both got signed the same time, with the Stooges having much less money, and both supported each other. After being signed, in 1969, the Stooges recorded their self-titled debut album, including several classics, but not an extremely amazing album, just pretty fuk'n good. Fun House shows the Stooges going through a sort of evolution, moving on to rawer, heavier, sleezier garage rock, drifting away from just sounding like the MC5's 'brother band'. This was 1970, dawn of a new era, and the auro of rock music was dying out. Jim Morrison was sinking deeper into alcoholism (but still making great music), the Beatles were done, the Stones were rounding up their tragic tour, and so on. The Stooges are generally regarded as a band that saved much of what rock really is, aka hard, fast, sexual music. This album (and it's follow-up) was also a huge reason that punk bands like the Ramones got the motivation to make music.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Down On The Street - This song is really cool. It starts of with a nice quick guitar part and Iggy howling, then it goes into his signature nasal-ish growl. Great lyrics, great song, and it also gets stuck in you head for hours.
Loose - A sexual-oriented song, really energetic, and really raw. A controversial line from this one was "I stick it deep inside". Well, that's Iggy for ya.
T.V. Eye - "T.V. Eye" is a definite classic, also, in my opinion, one of the first 'punk' songs. It will be stuck in your head for years once you hear it once. Enough said.
Dirt - This slows things down a weebit, and also tones down the guitar a bit. The bass is much more powerful, and I really like the way Iggy sings this one.
1970 - This is kind of a sequal to "1969" off of the s/t, but it is a lot faster, and, for the most part, a lot better. It gets the album back to it's extreme speed again. Another classic, just like basically every other song on this album. It gets really sloppy towards the end, though, almost too sloppy, adding in a real crappy sax part.
Fun House - It starts off a lot slower, then goes into a sax/guitar/bass/drums part, it's funny how they used sax on some of these songs, and it's also barely needed. I really like these lyrics, Iggy's growl is really cool on this too. Again, the end is slopped up.
L.A. Blues - This song is not really needed. Really. it's just kinda a slop-job, kind of used to end the album, I guess.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a darn good album, I really recommend it to any fan of the following bands: The Ramones, The New York Dolls, The MC5, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, or any modern garage-rock band.
I give it a 4.99/5, just because of "L.A. Blues".
