Fun House album cover
Fun House

The Stooges

1970
Elektra

Iggy Pop said once, when he was young, that he wanted his band to be like a machine, something that sounded like Detroit. This is that. Fun House was assembled from dozens of takes, each song a mantra, an American piledriver. This album has only one idea: hit and burn. Drummer Scott Asheton and bassist Dave Alexander drop onto the rails for each song and make repetition their goal, with real glee. Guitarist Ron Asheton smears the record with attitude and menace. And then there’s Iggy, who has the ability to make dumb, exhausted ideas feel like they were born in that moment. The  scream that opens “TV Eye”—“Loooooooord”—captures everything that you think going on stage with a rock band means. Years before Detroit techno—which I don’t think is in any way related to the Stooges—Fun House found what repetition could yield, and few understood this in 1970. This album beats the shit out of anything you put in front of it.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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