Original lead guitarist Ron Asheton played the bass on this album, replacing the troubled Dave Alexander. Unlike the band’s two Elektra releases before it, this Columbia album billed the band as Iggy and the Stooges, instead of just the Stooges. Raw Power was the third and final album by the Stooges before the start of Iggy Pop’s solo career. But Iggy’s mix possesses a raw power of its own. When you hear musicians and magazine writers discussing the impact of Raw Power on the evolution of rock music, they are certainly not referring to the 1997 version. Bowie’s 1973 mix is clearly the one that is historically important. The two mixes are very different, and each of them serves its own purpose. Iggy’s newer mix has received much criticism, but this is one case where I personally don’t prefer one mix over the other. The Bowie mix was out of print during the late-‘90’s and in the ‘00’s after it was deleted in favor of Iggy’s mix. It's not good enough to get the nod that an original or proper first mix might get, at least from me.On Record Store Day 2012, a special double-LP edition was released of Iggy (Pop) and the Stooges’ Raw Power (Legacy 88691959351), containing the David Bowie mix of the album which was originally released in 1973, as well as the 1997 version of the album as remixed by Iggy Pop. It's an artificial improvement, but the Bowie mix is wimpy and underwhelming and doesn't properly represent the title of the record. And, with the overdriven guitars, it simulates what the record might actually have sounded like if it was recorded properly. So, what you have with the '97 Iggy Mix is a more wild listen. More of Iggy's vocal mania, and you being able to hear it well compared to everything else, would have make the record an even more wild listen. Even if the rhythm section was sturdy and rockin' on Raw Power, you can't hear it anyway. This is because Iggy's vocals are the only thing prominently mixed on the original record. I also think the Bowie mix could have benefited from every word Iggy said, every grunt and groan, being put back. But those overdriven guitars do obscure the drums and bass, which weren't recorded properly anyway. Overdriving the guitars doesn't obscure sounds I can't hear. The guitars were mixed so poorly on the Bowie mix that you can't appreciate the smoothness and effects even at full blast. That clumsiness, to my ears, is the power. He just totally restored everything that was cut out of him in the first mix, and I thought, Damn, I really did like the old mix better." Here is part of what Ron Asheton said about the mixes (stolen from Wikipedia, the source is an interview with I-94 Bar - and I don't know what that is): "Basically, all that Iggy did was take all the smoothness and all the effects off James 's guitar, so his leads sound really abrupt and stilty and almost clumsy, and he just put back every single grunt, groan, and word he ever said on the whole fuckin' soundtrack. The Sony/Legacy 2LP version is a thing of eat pressings, both mixes, and you get to hear the Iggy mix in a version mastered for vinyl rather than CD, so no digital clipping or brickwalling, and with actual dynamics. I feel the same way about the mono/stereo mixes of Pet 's a masterpiece, so having two versions to choose from is a feature, not a bug. It rocks in a way the earlier one doesn't, it definitely serves a purpose. Don't know what the deal was during production, too many drugs or whatever, but they talk about how the levels were bad on the bass and stuff, and they've got all these little tiny overdubs punching in all the time like they were trying to "fix" whatever was wrong before they'd even finished recording, and then bringing Bowie in to "save" the muddled mess they'd made of it.Īll that said I do kind of listen to the Iggy mix just a bit more than the Bowie. Really like Williamson and Rock's comments on the wikipedia entry: basically, 'none of us liked the Bowie mix, but man the Iggy mix was even worse!' It points out the main drawback: apart from being rawer or louder or whatever, it just leaves the faders up on everything all the time so you hear every little guitar & vocal punch-in, and it sounds crowded.
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