The Stooges - s/t

I was introduced to The Stooges by one of my college professors. I introduced him to The Black Keys and The Stooges were his return of the favor.

At the time I was very big into punk, so learning about the bands that gave rise to punk (Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls) was a fun and interesting experience.  The interesting thing about the fact that The Stooges were by repayment for The Black Keys is that The Black Keys cover a Stooges song ("No Fun"). I think the music I have introduced people to and the music they've introduced me to would form an endless intertwined spirograph.

Anyway, The Stooges are raw and wild in a motor city mode. I don't know what it is about the greater Detroit metropolitan area (The Stooges actually hail from nearby Ann Arbor) but they have a longstanding proclivity for loudness and grittiness. Go all the way back to Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and fast forward to all the stuff Jack White has done (not to mention all the other great modern garage bands like The Dirtbombs and The Detroit Cobras) and you can see that the city itself is built on loud and gritty. The Stooges fit perfectly with the Detroit mold. They're every bit as wild as you'd expect (think of how crazy Iggy Pop is now as an old man, and project that backward to the time when he was young and unpredictable) and the tunes are great slices of proto-punk. The Stooges is a great album, and an absolutely necessary one in the grander view of the evolution of modern music.