The Stooges' 'Fun House' Gets Definitive Audiophile Upgrade
The Stooges' 1970 sophomore album "Fun House" has been a given an Definitive Audiophile remastered by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab for special limited-edition vinyl and hybrid SACD reissues.
MoFi shared these details: The numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP set is available now, exposing the striking inner details, raw energy, and live-in-the-room characteristics of Don Gallucci's esteemed production while bringing listeners up close and personal with Iggy Pop's heat-seeking vocals. A strictly limited, numbered Hybrid SACD will be available soon.
"Do you feel it?" Iggy Pop asks on "Dirt." The answer is patently obvious for anyone who encounters Fun House. This is a record on which unabandoned feeling takes precedence, primal energy surges to the fore, outsider attitude snarls with destructive force, and electrifying chaos assumes the form of wild joyousness. Legendary Village Voice journalist Robert Christgau even admitted "language wasn't designed for the job" of conveying what many critics and artists believe to be the ultimate rock 'n' roll statement. Sourced from the original master tapes (1/4" / 15 IPS Dolby A analog master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe), pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, MoFi's numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP set marks the first time this 1970 landmark is available at 45RPM speed on a non-limited set. This definitive-sounding copy benefits from the extra groove space by playing with enhanced definition, greater emotionalism, and more realistic ambience than prior versions.
From beginning to end, the live-in-the-room characteristics and sudden mayhem closely identified with Fun House emerge with gripping presence, body, and power. The Stooges' most controlled, focused, and hot-wired creation, Fun House now adopts the sonic vigor of the atom bomb or hydroelectric plant to which Christgau thought of comparing it. The relentless sense of groove, the sheer impact of the rhythms, the bleed of the unmuted volumes, the ferocity of Pop's heat-seeking vocals, the bruising churn of the low end, and the grit, grime, and grind of four dudes and auxiliary saxophonist Steven Mackay bent on breaking into another dimension are exposed with total transparency.
Intense, cohesive, and aggressive, Fun House differs from and improves upon the Stooges' groundbreaking debut in several ways. The quartet developed nearly all of the songs over the course of several months of weekend shows before entering Elektra Sound Recorders, just a short stroll from their temporary digs at the Tropicana Motel, without the pressure to write additional material. To capture their concert vibe, Gallucci thwarted convention and removed all the drapes, carpeting, and other vibration-deadening accoutrements from the studio. He also let Pop sing, grunt, shout, and bark in live fashion via a hand-held microphone sent through two Marshall amplifiers that served as his personal PA system. Reportedly, aside from two guitar overdubs, every note of Fun House transpired as you hear it today.
The forthcoming Hybrid SACD edition is elegantly housed in a mini-LP-style gatefold package, strictly limited to 2,500 numbered copies, and delivers enhanced definition, stellar clarity, and realistic ambience. Listeners experience the relentless riffing of guitarist Ron Asheton, corrosive pounding of drummer Scott Asheton, sinewy swaying of bassist Dave Alexander, blustery howling of Pop, and the untamed, nearly stream-of-conscious blaring of Mackay. Plucked from his job at a record store in Michigan just two days before the sessions began, the young saxophonist helped push the Stooges to avant galaxies no artist ever visited on "1970," the title track, and "L.A. Blues," the latter an attempt to chronicle the Stooges' famed concert-ending freak-outs. To get in the proper frame of mind, the band dropped acid and let fly. Often imitated and never duplicated, the results continue to melt minds more than 50 years after Pop and company got loose.
Order the vinyl or pre-order the SACD here
Vinyl Track List:
Side One:
Down on the Street
Loose
Side Two:
T.V. Eye
Dirt
Side Three:
1970
Side Four:
Fun House
L.A. Blues
Hybrid SACD Track List:
Down on the Street
Loose
T.V. Eye
Dirt
1970
Fun House
L.A. Blues
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