I picked up this album more for the Mick Rock photographed album cover than anything else. Well, Raw Power is one of my favorite albums from the distant past, and the beauty of that record seems never to die. And compilations or reissues such as Rare Power expose the original album's importance. By the way, there is an official release of the original David Bowie and Iggy Pop mix. Both are essential to hear and own; one doesn’t betray the other. It is a mirror reflection where one’s left hand is portrayed as a right hand as you reflect on the sound. Rare Power is a different type of beast.
First of all, I first heard Raw Power when it came out in 1973. At the time, I feared The Stooges because my understanding of their work through magazines like Creem, Rolling Stone, and Melody Maker may challenge one to think about what music is or not. At the age of 19, I needed a foundation of what I thought was music to be the basis of my listening experience and its enjoyment. I also thought Iggy was the artist who did things once and never again, or at least destroyed his past as fast as possible. Which made him an interesting subject matter to read in the Rock Press. But do I want to participate as a consumer of such destruction? Because of the Bowie connection, I leaped into the eternal flame of Iggy and purchased Raw Power. I could have sworn that the world had been altered or changed by the first listen.
I expected to hear intense riffs, but what surprised me was the ‘ballads’ Gimme Danger, and I Need Somebody. The acoustic guitars (or that is what it sounds like to me) mixed in with the electric gear are seductive, especially with Iggy’s baritone ballad voice. A voice that is used in perfect service for the music on his later album, The Idiot. Here, he sounds young and entails with the Jim Morrison croon when he sang his slow songs for The Doors. What makes him great is that he takes from others, even Sinatra, but “Iggyified” it to make his presence unique and very much of his imagination. My other favorite Stooges piece is Shake Appeal, one of the great Bo Diddley types of riffs but done to the maximum.
Rare Power is not essential, but very fun in that b-side way of enjoying hidden gems that are semi-polished but not entirely there (yet). Doojiman is filler, but on a subconscious level, it works as a bit of magic compared to the finished recordings. What strikes me about The Stooges (early and Raw Power era) is that they had a unique groove, not precisely funk, but something almost Motown-like in complexity and as played. There are no masterpieces of unknown songs here, but it is like a negative of a positive printing process. It’s another way of looking into their dynamics and work methods. I’m Sick Of You is a classic Iggy / Stooges ballad, but it wouldn’t have fit on Raw Power. So Rare Power is a long footnote/endnote or perhaps an annotated version of the original album.