In the late 1960s, a change occurred in rock music that would alter the course of the next 40 years. With the rise of punk music, the face of rock and roll and the art community were forever changed. The Stooges, which appeared in the late 1960s, represent the pinnacle of this change. Often overlooked and oversimplified, his work represents not only the epitome of the budding punk genre of his day, but also its driving force and remains the driving force behind much of rock and roll to this day. .
The Stooges debuted in the late 1960s following the trend of rock and roll artists of the time. Harder rock sounds developed at the same time by Led Zeppelin, The Who, Cream and Jimi Hendrix, were becoming popular, as were fuzzed guitars and outrageous stage antics. The Stooges took these elements and combined them for the first time with raw aggression and edgy ideas. Similar artists of the time included The Velvet Underground, MC5 and The Doors, but none equal what the Stooges possess. “The Velvets” are more highbrow, philosophical, and rooted in the East Coast drug scene, while the Doors present the same emotions as the Stooges at times, but had a more typical rock and roll exterior to wrap it up. The MC5s are the closest relatives of the Stooges musically, and in fact both bands signed at the same time the Stooges opened for the MC5. However, the MC5 has a clear political leaning that would drive them apart. The Stooges are a unique act that, due to its brief stint and little popular success, would change the future of rock and roll.
Music:
The Stooges’ music is hard to describe as they are one of those bands you have to listen to understand. It is raw, aggressive, honest and artistic. Unlike the West Coast psychedelic scene, where drug references were more often covered in imagery and subtlety, the Stooges were honest and raw. The lyrics are grounded in realism like The Velvet Underground, but where the “Velvets” tend to be more journalistic, the Stooges tend to be more in-your-face. The guitar work is rough and raunchy in both sound and playing style and lacks the subtlety of hard rock blues artists like Cream, Led Zeppelin and Hendrix. The focus of any given song is on the immediacy and the particular emotion of that song. It’s an aggressive style that can be rewarding if you’re used to the more polished sounds of modern music, or even typical records from the ’60s and ’70s. Yet the music packs a lasting impact. The first Stooges song I ever heard was from their second album: 1970s “Fun House”. “Down on the Street,” a slow-starting rocker that has a simple but effective riff that builds to a pulsing, fuzzy chorus, only to back off and build again before fading out. A great song that immediately sparked my interest in this band.
This song seemed to represent them in a nutshell; loud, aggressive, emotional and on edge at all times. Although it has the same sound and song style, the Stooges’ first album seems to lack some of the intensity that made them such an incredible live act. Still, both give good representations. I think the only band from that era that came close to what the Stooges were doing emotionally is the Doors. The Doors, however, had a more conventional and psychedelic sound, for which they received significantly more recognition. They also relate to some of The Door’s more artistic undertakings, but not to the psychedelic movement.
With songs on “Fun House” bordering on progressive rock (especially the title track) and the noise rock of “LA Blues,” the Stooges took art rock in new directions while remaining firmly grounded in reality. This art rock is not at all the psychedelic movement of the west coast. Instead, it’s more rooted in the East Coast drug scene of bands like the Velvet Underground, but without the big intellect and with a much more primitive feel. A kind of hybrid of artistic scenes that coincides with the new movements of performance and shock art. It’s also a perfect image of a band living on the edge. Plagued by hard drug problems and infighting over their short career, their music is an accurate and honest representation of a band on the brink of self-destruction on any given day. This is part of what makes music great. It’s almost like listening to a machine shake to pieces and collapse as its parts give way.
The impact on music:
When I first heard “Down on the Street” just a year or so ago at the most, I knew immediately what an impact that song and album had had on rock and roll. It’s a song that could easily have been written by the punk movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s, or the garage rock revival bands of the 2000s. One of the first rock and roll songs to shed almost all the elements of blues and leaving only the heavy rock that would become the staple of punk and heavy metal for years to come. For a song that was written and recorded in 1970, it sure was ahead of its time. Black Sabbath would debut the same year, but their pinnacle album “Paranoid” wouldn’t arrive until 1971, laying the foundation for heavy metal, though still retaining some bluesy elements. Considered the first all-metal band, Judas Priest would not arrive until 1974. The punk movement would start mainly with the Ramones but they would not arrive until 1976. Although the album does not reflect the same intensity, the first Stooges album released in 1969 really was groundbreaking. in this sound Throughout the 1960s, rock and roll always retained elements of the blues even in its psychedelic phase, with blues rhythms, back beats, and blues shuffle. The Stooges loosened up and removed much of the bluesy feel. Whether this was due to minimalist views, a lack of technical gaming skills, or a lack of being able to play while on drugs is debatable, but the results were astounding. This beat and style are the start of multiple rock and roll movements to come, including heavy metal, punk, grunge, garage rock, thrash, hardcore, and more. The most recent garage rock movements have spawned bands that are closer than ever to the Stooges. The White Stripes certainly draw on the Stooges for their sound, and bands like The Kills capture their intensity almost perfectly.
The performance impact:
Although musically the Stooges should get far more credit than they do, their most visible impact is in their rock and roll performance. Taking some of the elements of the performing arts that were going on at the time the Stooges produced more of an experience than a stage show. Although the psychedelic scene was doing interesting things with light and color, and the Velvet Underground pioneered multimedia spectacle with Andy Warhol and “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” the Stooges were doing something completely different. These shows were the forerunners of the modern mosh pit and Iggy Pop (lead singer of the Stooges) is often credited with inventing stage diving. Rock and roll shows were changing with harder rock and Led Zeppelin certainly pioneered the hard rock show, but they didn’t offer the same aggressiveness that the Stooges did on a live stage. Having never seen the Stooges live, it’s hard for me to say exactly what a show would be like, but I imagine it was like an animal on the loose to attack and jump, or stop and recline at will.
A pure primal release of aggression and emotion to the music. This, combined with their performance art and shock tactics (Iggy Pop was known to smear himself in peanut butter and blood, cut himself on stage, hurl primitive screams, and play a vacuum cleaner as an instrument), developed the modern stage show and aggressive. atmospheric performance. After listening to the Stooges, I find it hard not to relate modern rock concerts directly to this period. The music lends itself perfectly to a high-energy, high-aggression extravaganza that, while I don’t know for sure if it ever happened, would culminate beautifully with instrument banging, hardcore mosh pits, and riots. This may sound like a bad thing, but it paved the way for heavier artists and new concert ideas with much more interaction between audience members and between the band and the audience. It also allowed the audience and the band an outlet for emotions that may be bottled up. A kind of primal therapy of screaming with music.
The impact of these shows can be seen in today’s hard rock and metal shows that have huge mosh pits, nailed to the stage, and primitive screaming. These shows represent the same outlet for excitement that was pioneered in 1969-1970 by the Stooges.
There was also a budding primal trend in the art community. Whether the idea developed in the art community and was translated into music by the Stooges or was taken from the rise of aggression in music and translated into art is debatable. Either way, both sides certainly impacted the other and helped bring these new ideas into the mainstream or at least to a larger audience (the Stooges were never considered mainstream).
Unfortunately, the shows were also linked to the hard drug scene and hard drugs would eventually spell the downfall of the Stooges. This is a problem that exists to this day with hard rock, metal, and aggressive music that often has a relationship to the hard drug scene.
Remembering the Stooges:
Whether you listen to their music or not, it’s important to recognize this band for their work in just a few short years. Serving as one of the starting points for so many rock and roll movements and for the aggressive, primal shows of modern metal, hard rock, and punk, the Stooges have spread their influence far and wide in rock history. A band should not only be measured by its commercial or popular success, but by its influence on future musicians and artists. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin made great music, but their work is timeless because of how many people they have influenced. The Stooges’ work has the same timeless quality and if you know rock and roll you can feel that influence from the first listen.
If you’re interested in the Stooges, check out http://www.allmusic.com as well as their second album “Fun House” as it’s my favourite.
References include http://www.allmusic.com for dates and timelines and my personal music collection.