Raw Power

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Which version of Raw Power is best:

a) the original with the thin shitty Bowie mix, or

b) the beefier 90's Iggy mix, that arguably rocks harder but makes it sound like just another LA rock album,

c) who cares Funhouse is the only album you need by the Stooges, or indeed by anyone.

― Winkelmann, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

C: Funhouse is much, much better than Raw Power. I was listening to it on the way to work, actually.

― Yancey, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

as I think I've said before Funhouse is indeed the best, because you can make your own mix of "No Fun" by turning the balance knob on your stereo all the way in one direction or the other.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The original is better because the guitars are more angular and thus presage Television. Funhouse presages nothing but splat!

Besides, Cale was the best producer the Stooges ever had anyway. (ducks)

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The original shitty Bowie mix, recorded on one side of a crap quality C90 tape, carried around in the pocket of a leather jacket by a beautiful boy in hairdye and eyeliner until the heat warped it and made every song go SCREEEEEEEEE and then casually left at my house one day.

It changed my life.

― kate, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No Fun is on the first album, not Funhouse.

― Pedant, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've always found FUNHOUSE to be significantly superior to RAW POWER just `cos....well, the songs are just better and there's a more cohesive feel to the album.

― Alex in NYC, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah Funhouse is much better, maybe it was a distraction to mention that. I just thought it was interesting that for 20 years it seemed like everyone thought Bowie had fucked up Raw Power and then cheered when the remixed version came out. And after a while it dawned on people that some vital ingerdient had been lost, what had sounded "wrong" was actually part of its appeal.

― Winkelmann, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Funhouse is their best album. I only heard the Raw Power remix once and it sounded weird to me without all the mush. When they remix old tapes with current effects and equipment, it kind of loses some of the crud that makes those late 60s to mid 70s recording sound cool.

I'd like to hear the orignal mix remastered, as all of those Stooges albums are pretty early CDs and are before they got into doing the oversampling and new tweaks. I bet the orignal Raw Power (and most of those early CD releases) would sound alot better with a fresh CD master. They can get a bit closer to the orignal analog vinyl master with usually more defined bass and high end some of the newer equipment.

― earlnash, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The 9CD Rhino Handmade Funhouse box set may be the most unneccessary nine CDs ever released. A friend has it and we listened to it one night. It's like listening to Funhouse, out of order, for about 11 or 12 hours straight. It was awful.

― Yancey, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

earlnash is right, early CDs generally suck. The vinyl version of Raw Power sounds fine to me.

― g, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, but "Lost In the Future" is pretty cool.

― Nate Patrin, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the remix quite a bit, but then again it's the one I bought and I've only heard the Bowie mix once or twice.

― Jordan, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Which version of Raw Power is best:
a) the original with the thin shitty Bowie mix, or
b) the beefier 90's Iggy mix, that arguably rocks harder but makes it sound like just another LA rock album,

c) who cares Funhouse is the only album you need by the Stooges, or indeed by anyone.

Of the two versions of Raw Power, you've basically described why I like Bowie's mix better. The vinyl is still in print, and it's a lot cheaper than the CD, so why waste time and money on a generic ROCK album, when you can listen to Bowie's mix and wonder what the fuck he was on at the time?

The answer to C hits home the most for me, though. And let's be honest, the first side of the Raw Power doesn't make up for the weak second half.

― Vic Funk, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yesterday i bought the stooges - declaration of war, which is a best of of the funhouse sessions. it's on vinyl AND it's got 'lost in the future' on it!

on the subject: i only have the 'early' cd-version and love it! it sounds thin/sharp in a very addictive kind of way... if that makes sense... i haven't heard the remastered version tho...

― willem, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The re-mixed 'Raw Power' is horrible, horrible, horrible. Just making everything louder doesn't make it more powerful, just more enervating, it's like trying to listen over a malfunctioning fridge

― dave q, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

that would make it a cold album trying to sound cool...?

― willem, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

eighteen years pass...

A A A.

the original mix is already VERY loud. its so loud actually that a few times it does something fucked up to my technics mixer where the sound just shuts off and I have to turn it on and off again... the iggy mix CD is just dynamically nasty and unnecessary. can't trust the mixing skills of a dude who's been playing live shows for 30+ years and whose ears are probably fucked.

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Tuesday, 14 July 2020 18:22 (five years ago)

I love this band and love this album. My preferred mix is the new mix Iggy Pop supervised in 1997, but the original CD mastering is a complete shit show. During the mastering stage, after the mixes were finalized and approved, Iggy asked the engineers to process it with a horrendous amount of compression, and it sounds like he didn't quite understand the problems that would cause. They got him to make a marginal compromise, but the damage remained extremely severe.

In 2012, Sony issued the new mix on vinyl, releasing it on Record Store Day and keeping it in-print for a long time after that. It has NONE of the horrendous mastering moves done to the CD, mainly because it was not feasible to do them for a vinyl mastering. As a result, it's a tremendous improvement, and I was finally able to appreciate everything great about the newer mix - the more you crank it up, the better it sounds with the dynamics fully intact.

― birdistheword, Tuesday, 14 July 2020 21:48 (five years ago)

James Williamson should supervise a 50th Anniversary remix.

― FAC 179 (morrisp), Tuesday, 14 July 2020 22:37 (five years ago)

Weasel Walter did a great job on his unofficial "Search and Destroy" remix, actually doing the drums justice and dialing back the vocals to a more balanced level (among other things)...it just sounds *right*:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aagvwJTNeSY

― ernestp, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 05:15 (five years ago)

Sounds like a cover.

― everything, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 06:30 (five years ago)

That sounds great. I like the flanging he's added to the rhythm guitar too. I wonder how he got hold of the stems?

― Soz (Not Soz) (Vast Halo), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 10:03 (five years ago)

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