Raw Power (2023 Remaster) [Iggy Mix]

Ask Iggy Pop what he wanted to accomplish when he and The Stooges started writing their third album Raw Power, and he’ll tell you this: “I didn’t think we were going to accomplish much, because everybody preferred to listen to tamer stuff, frankly. That’s the thing: It was too wild for people. But what did I want? I just wanted to out-rock everyone.” The newly reconfigured band, with Iggy on vocals, James Williamson on guitar, Scott Asheton on drums and former Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton moving to bass—and David Bowie producing—were about to do just that. What they didn’t know when they entered London’s CBS Studios in September of 1972 is that they were also about to lay the blueprint for punk. Fifty years after its February 1973 release, Raw Power still looms like a colossus. But its beginnings were less than auspicious. “Once The Stooges Mach One had broken up, everything was in shambles,” Iggy tells Apple Music. “I had an offer to go to England and put together a band, but no one was looking for The Stooges again—just me. So I sought out Williamson, who was the most interesting guitar player I knew. He was living on his sister’s couch. I said, ‘Play me your best current idea.’ He played me the riff to ‘Penetration’. So that was what convinced me. I got on the phone and pushed and shoved and manipulated until we got him brought over with me, and ultimately the other two. Everybody just threw up their hands: ‘Great, we’ve got the fucking Stooges.’” Beyond Williamson’s crucial presence, there was another important distinction. The dysfunctional, drug-addled band that had released their self-titled 1969 album and 1970’s Fun House as simply The Stooges was now Iggy & The Stooges. And the implied power shift was very real: This was now Iggy’s band. “I thought, this is not the time in my career to go anywhere without my own music,” he recalls. “I'll be overwhelmed, and I'll be in an area where my feet can't touch the ground.” Iggy’s new musical partnership with W