When I originally wrote about The Stooges first, self titled album last September I was just getting started with this blog and I wanted to share my enthusiasm for what is undoubtedly an important and powerful record. If you’re interested in seeing what I wrote about The Stooges then you can read about that here. At that time I had a 2010 Rhino reissue of the record and I was pretty enthusiastic about it, but I was starting to acquire more vintage records and I was beginning to discover the flaws that many, most perhaps, of the reissued albums of the past decade or so share.
The Rhino was my first listen to this terrific record and I was so taken with the music that I didn’t care much whether this was a good pressing or not. I was happy with it and happy to recommend it. Still, as I started to see the sonic advantages of many of the vintage records I was hearing I felt I had to try to pick up a vintage copy of The Stooges and see if I could still recommend the Rhino reissue.
Unfortunately early pressings of this album are scarce, expensive and often in lousy condition. But I kept looking and eventually went for a 1972 Canadian repress offered by a Slovakian record seller who described the condition of the vinyl as “MINT.” I was intrigued. It’s not typical for a used record to be graded “MINT” but I figured if it was anywhere close to that it was worth the 40 Euros asking price so I bought it.
The record was, in fact, mint. It looked brand new and the vinyl was absolutley perfect! I was pretty excited to hear how it sounded.
The funny thing about objects that are “perfect” is that they have a way of compelling us to try to keep them that way. If the record had arrived with a few little scratches on it, frankly, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But this record was so perfect that I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted it to stay that way, always and forever.
I’m sure you can see where this is going. As I was lifting the record clamp up to place it on the record, it caught the edge and slipped out of my hand, landing on the vinyl. Quite a bit of cussing ensued. I removed the clamp, lifted the record off the platter and looked closely and there it was – one tiny little nick about halfway through “we will fall.” At that moment I had never been so upset about a scratch on a record. And this was tiny! Ridiculous.
The nice thing about having a perfect object that is rendered imperfect is that, once you get over the irritation and regret of having done said rendering you can then stop worring about it. At least that’s how it works for me. So now I could just move forward and enjoy the record in all of its 99.999% scratch free vintage glory.
It is a great sounding copy by the way and way better than the Rhino. That’s the long and short of it. It has what so many of the 180g reissues I’ve heard don’t – space, presence and naturalness. This recording has a lot of distortion on it, but on this Canadian copy the guitars sound like guitars, even with the distortion. The drums occupy their place in the soundstage with more realism. Iggy’s voice, ironically, sounds sweeter. And on “i wanna be your dog” the sleigh bells that I enjoyed and highlighted when I first wrote about this record have more presence and live in the space with the rest of the instruments. Overall this copy just gives more of what the recording is, the sound of a very tight and inspired band playing in a studio and killing it!
Is it worth the extra money to buy a relatively expensive vintage copy of The Stooges when you can get a brand new or hardly played reissue for less than 20 bucks? To me it is, and I think this record merits it. If you’ve been wanting to pick up a copy of this special album I would recommend seeking a vintage copy out. I can strongly recommend the 1972 Canadian repress and there are a number of good copies for sale out there for not crazy money.