The Stooges - Fun House [Red & Black Vinyl] [Rhino ROCKtober 2022]

While The Stooges' excellent debut, produced by John Cale, had a clean, punchy sound that introduced the band's ragged, stripped-down rock, it did not capture the chaotic fury of the band's live spirit. The Stooges hired Don Gallucci (formerly of the Kingsmen) to produce Fun House, and he gave the album a murky, swampy ambience that lacks clarity and precision, yet compensates for that lack tenfold with immediacy and a staggering sonic punch in the gut. And where The Stooges can sound like bratty teenaged music, this album sounds grown up, menacing, mercurial, dark, and relentlessly primal. The muddied production may add to the primitivism, but it is the band that truly conjures the magic.