Raw Power by The Stooges, one of the prototype records for punk music, with its snarling and frighteningly rough aural attitudes, is now available on MP3 format from Amazon this month for only $5.

The Stooges had already released two albums prior to 1973’s Raw Power, (The Stooges and Funhouse), each also dazzlingly original and sonically foreboding and ominous, lean and tough, like a bottle slash across the face, elements which became fully realized by the time Raw Power was released. Produced originally by David Bowie and led by the pint-sized man full of moxie Iggy Pop and with the sonic rumblings and grumblings of guitarist James Williamson and the rhythm section of former guitar player Ron Asheton moved over to bass and his brother Scotty still playing the drums as he always had, Raw Power finds the quartet taking Thor-style hammers in a musical sense to glass and then picking up the shards and handing them over to Iggy who proceeds to self-mutilate himself by way of his full admission and vocal nakedness on the record. He offers no apologies and takes no prisoners; he stands alone on his fucked up summit and that’s just the way he likes it.

The result is a mess, a glorious mess; this is one of the few times that the word mess is used as a positive adjective in its description, as Raw Power embodies just that, a muddled mix, with limited sonic visibility and depth, yet all that still remains a backdrop to the sheer raw nerve the album hits again and again. It’s like an archer who can’t miss his target; Raw Power volcanoes along at breathless pace, and this version of the album, with all of the songs remixed by Iggy, puts a reserve tank of sonic octane in full motion and brings the record to even a more bloodier, black and blue laden release than it already is. Just some of the nuggets in a mine of them which is this album are Iggy’s I got a line on you jackhammer musings of “Search and Destroy”; his literally yelping till his lungs are sore into the microphone with the anvil to the chest song of admission “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell”; the slick cool vibrations of “Penetration,” done with a sly wink musically and dead-on vocally; the pained blues through a shit storm of glass and asbestos “Gimme Danger,” and “I Need Somebody,” the out of control freight train over the back title track and all the rest, there isn’t a dud to be found here.

Why do you think yours truly, Stoogeypedia, uses the cover of the album as his avatar here on my GoD articles? Silly rabbit, Stooges ain’t for kids.

Raw Power remains exactly that; never were truer words used to describe the contents of an earthquake shaking musical experience of an album.

Browse all 100 albums on sale this month for only $5 each.

Track Listing

1. Search And Destroy
2. Gimme Danger
3. Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell
4. Penetration
5. Raw Power
6. I Need Somebody
7. Shake Appeal
8. Death Trip

Note – when you purchase MP3s through Amazon, it stores your purchases to Amazon’s Cloud Drive; from there you can stream the music right from their online player. Also, if you have a Kindle Fire, your MP3 purchases will automatically be available for you to stream on your device. All your purchases are backed up and available for you to download at any time. You can download the files to your computer to load to an MP3 device and to your iTunes account if you have one. If you’d like to gift these MP3 purchases, you can – just click the “Give album or song as gift” button on the right on the product page. From there you enter the recipient’s email address and then select either specific songs to gift or the entire album.