#94 The Stooges, 'Fun House' (1970)

Previously #191

‘Fun House’ is the second record to be released by the iconic proto-Punks, The Stooges. Following on less than a year from previous entry, the self-titled ‘The Stooges’ (#488), ‘Fun House’ continued the band’s advancement of the seminal new genre of Punk. Initially, producer, Don Gallucci had each band member record in isolated sessions. They’d spend the day recording multiple takes of a song. The result was terrible, by the band’s account, and not representative of their explosive live set, which was famous for Iggy Pop’s incredible antics (including the popularisation of stage diving). The solution? Set the studio up to emulate the band’s live set up. Boom mics were replaced with handheld mics, the rumble of the bass caused the snare to rattle; it was raw, it was live, it was punk and it was The Stooges as their fans knew them.

Iggy Pop channelled Howlin’ Wolf on this album. The set up of the recorded allowed for improvisation and the result is seven songs of dirty, unrefined punk. Joey Ramone, Mark E. Smith, Jack White, Nick Cave, Steve Albini and Henry Rollins, amongst others, have cited this as their favourite record. Australian punk band, Radio Birdman, got their name from a Mondegreen on ‘1970,’ “Radio burnin’ up above.” ‘Fun House’ is an upbeat, rollicking, fun record, psychedelic rock meets punk. Following its release, the group disbanded due to their worsening heroin use. They would reform a few years later, but ‘Fun House’ was the last time that the original line up played together on record.

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