The Stooges - Fun House
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CD Details
Artist: The StoogesEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: Elektra / Ada
Soundtracks:
- Down on the Street
- Loose
- T.V. Eye
- Dirt
- 1970
- Fun House
- L.A. Blues
Music reviews of Fun House
Music Review: One half Stooges album, one half a jazz/band jam session. 72.5/100
Rating: 4 Stars
I'm reviewing the version of this cd which I got in a "2 in 1" with "The Stooges". The sound quality is excellent. Like I said in my header, the first side of this album (were it on vinyl) would be straight up Stooges. The second side, starting from the song "1970" is more band jam or jazz rock or noise rock, depending on your view. It's this change in tone which makes judging this album difficult. If you were to take a cynical view, you could view the band as having running out of material to make a full album, so they just 'padded' it out with 'filler' of a non-descript sort. I didn't mind the second half of the album, which is not to say that others won't hate it. So, I think that album would have a 'natural' scoring range of anywhere between 5 out of 10 to maybe up to 7.5 out of 10, depending on your disposition. Just by the by, I make a note of a couple of songs sort of having a drug related sound to them...those songs are: (at the start) "Dirt", "1970" (sort of at the end of that track) and "L.A.Blues", if I am reading my notes correctly. Dunno...to me it sort of sounds like a bong sound!
Best song:
Dirt - coming in at around 7 minutes, this is a slower, bluesy song with a keyboard intro. It's smooth sounding, with a bassy riff. There is also some pretty guitar playing...sort of Dire Straitsy lead guitar work, sometimes. There are also some nice changes in tone.
Next best song:
T.V.Eye - a garage rock type guitar sound comes only from the left channel. On the right channel, the drums are dominant, but not exclusively there. The guitar definitely has a 'punk' quality to it, and it also reminds me, somewhat, to the atmosphere evoked in their debut album song "I wanna be your dog". Bass guitar sounds rich in this song. Iggy demonstrates a sense of theatre with his screeching on this song. My first contact with this song was via Australian punk pioneers Radio Birdman's version in their debut album "Radios appear". Their version is more energetic. I'll mention this Aussie band for the song below, too.
Best of the rest:
1970 - a jumping, bluesy rock song, with a bassy sound...running bass. Not sure if Aussie band Radio Birdman misheard the lyrics in this song (like I initially did, but having being 'primed' to hear it, maybe, due to listening to them a short time before I heard The Stooges for the first time), which goes "Radio burnin', up above". Anyway, "Radio Birdman" sounds a cooler band name than "Radio burnin'", right? When I review Radios Appear, I'll mention when that band name drops bands like The Stooges in one of their songs. ANYWAY, this is the track which marks the right angled turn into jazz rock/noise rock. The song is quite catchy until this change of direction, which features a jazzy saxophone outro. The song definitely has a groove to it though.
The rest:
Down on the street - a mid-tempo blues rock song opens the album. Has an interesting drum pattern and some fuzz rock guitar. The guitars have a 'proto-punk' sound to them. This song also has a quiet/loud/quiet structure, which is the structure which alternative rock group Pixies would later be identified with. Song features bass and guitar solo. Iggy's voice reminds me of Aussie Tex Perkins in this song (especially his band The Cruel Sea).
Loose - another track with a proto-punk guitar sound. Song is garage rock, with a punkish sounding rhythm guitar, bass guitar, and a whiny sounding lead guitar.
The other jazz rock/noise rock songs:
Fun house - comes in at a long 7:46 minutes. The intro reminds me of The Doors' "Roadhouse blues" (their debut album also had echoes of The Doors in it...see my recent review for more details). Perhaps you could describe this song as a continuation of the jazz rock outro from the previous song, "1970". Both feature the sax, and the early lyrics to this song also make that connection. A bassy track. 3:49 into this song, there is some distortion. Iggy's occasionally screeching vocal style is also an echo of The Doors' Jim Morrison's foray into this vocal technique. Anyway, when The Stooges do 'jam' on this album, they always play tight.
L.A. Blues - in my notes I write "jazz rock (?)". Maybe it's a jam...money for jam. Saxophone again adds unity to the second half of this album's style. Iggy again screeches in this song. It sounds like two sets of drummers are used in this song.
Recommendations:
Radio Birdman: Radios appear. A recent critics/industry poll voted this one of the top 10 Australian albums of all time.
Captain Beefheart: Trout mask replica. Not exactly a favourite album of mine, but it does go further down the 'experimental/jazzy' route than The Stooges do here. Critics love it.
Description of Fun House
Of course the Stooges were stupid, that was the whole point. Three chords were okay, two were even better, one or none (the cacophonous "L.A. Blues") was best of all. Drunk on their own testosterone, Iggy Pop and Co. kept things simple, loud, and brutal--and he's been coasting on the band's rep ever since. Slow and thuddy as it sounds now, almost nobody had ever made rock as primal as this second album. Iggy howled like a psycho, the band sounded like they could barely play the elementary riffs, and occasionally a moment of bone-headed poetry made it through the glorious muck. --Douglas WolkGeneral CDs
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