Wiki
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Release Date
7 July 1970
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Length
7 tracks
Fun House is the second studio album by American rock band the Stooges. It was released on July 7, 1970, by Elektra Records. Though initially commercially unsuccessful, Fun House developed a strong cult following. Like its predecessor (1969's The Stooges) and its successor (1973's Raw Power), it is generally considered integral in the development of punk rock.
In 1969, Elektra Records had released the Stooges' debut album to mixed reviews and mediocre commercial success (peaking at number 106 on the Billboard charts). Company head Jac Holzman believed that MC5, another Michigan-based band, had more potential of success than the Stooges. Holzman asked former Kingsmen keyboardist Don Gallucci to produce the Stooges' second album.
Having seen the group live, Gallucci told Holzman that the Stooges were an "interesting group, but I don't think you can get this feeling on tape". Holzman said it didn't matter because he had already reserved recording time in L.A. The album was recorded at Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles, California, from May 11 to 25, 1970. Gallucci's plan as a producer was to use each day to record about a dozen takes of a particular song and then pick the one that would appear on the album. The first day consisted of sound checking and run-throughs of all songs. The entire band used headphones with the bass and drums isolated by baffles while singer Iggy Pop sang his vocals through a condenser microphone on a boom.
The result was terrible in the band's opinion. They took exception to the atmosphere inside the studio with soundproof padding and isolators. To achieve their vision, the Stooges and Gallucci stripped the entire studio of its usual gear to emulate their live performances as closely as possible. According to Gallucci, they set up the band in the way they normally play at a concert. For example, Pop was singing through a handheld microphone, and the guitar and bass amps were placed side by side. The results were very raw when compared to many contemporary records; for example, without the normal isolation baffles the vibrations from the bass amplifier cause audible rattling of the snare drum on several songs.
Pop indicated that iconic blues singer Howlin' Wolf "was really pertinent for me on Fun House. That stuff is Wolfy, at least as I could do it."
The Stooges intended for "Loose" to be the album's first track; Elektra, however, felt that "Down on the Street" would be the stronger opener.
An alternate version of "Down on the Street", featuring a Doors-style organ overdubbed by Gallucci, was pulled from the album and released as a single. It was released the same month as Fun House, and fared slightly better on the charts.
According to Billboard magazine, Fun House is set in hard rock and improvisation. Music critic Robert Christgau characterized the album as "genuinely 'avant-garde' rock" because of the music's apt "repetitiveness", "solitary new-thing saxophone", and "L.A. Blues", which showcases the "old avant-garde fallacy … trying to make art about chaos by reproducing same." Greg Kot called Fun House "the Stooges' punk jazz opus".
Australian band Radio Birdman chose their name based on mishearing the line "radio burnin' up above" in the song "1970". They also named their Oxford Street performance venue The Oxford Funhouse and covered "TV Eye" on their 1977 album Radios Appear.
John Zorn covered "T.V. Eye" for Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary: the same song was also covered for the glam rock film Velvet Goldmine by a supergroup featuring original Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton and members of Sonic Youth, with actor Ewan McGregor on vocals. The Birthday Party covered "Loose" on their 1982 live album Drunk on the Pope's Blood and, also live, the song "Funhouse": a version with sax played by J.G. Thirlwell appears on the 1999 CD The Birthday Party Live 81–82. the Damned's 1977 debut album, Damned Damned Damned, features a cover of "1970", entitled "I Feel Alright". Depeche Mode covered "Dirt" on their I Feel Loved single. Hanoi Rocks cover "1970" (titled "I Feel Alright") on their 1984 live album All Those Wasted Years. Spacemen 3 adapted "T.V. Eye" into the near-cover "OD Catastrophe" on their debut album Sound of Confusion. Michael Monroe also covered the song for his Another Night in the Sun live album in 2010. In 1989 indie rock band Blake Babies covered "Loose" for their album Earwig. They sampled Pop's voice into the song. Rage Against the Machine recorded a cover of "Down on the Street" on their 2000 covers album Renegades, and the main riff from their song "Sleep Now in the Fire" was inspired by the riff in "T.V. Eye." A cover of "Dirt" appears on disc one of Screeching Weasel's 1999 double CD compilation "Thank You Very Little". In 2010, the Nigerian songwriter Billy Bao and his band went into the studio exactly 40 years after the recording of the album and recorded their album "Buildings from Bilbao" using all titles and song times for their own songs (except "1970", which is updated as "2010", and "L.A. Blues", which is called "LAGOS Blues"). "Down on the Street" briefly appears on the song "Maggot Death (Live at Brighton)" off of the Throbbing Gristle album The Second Annual Report, as a field recording of a club playing the song over the P.A. system.
Numerous other musical artists have cited Fun House as their favorite album, including Joey Ramone, Mark E. Smith, Jack White, Nick Cave, Michael Gira, Buzz Osborne, Aaron North, Henry Rollins and Steve Albini.
In 1999, Rhino Records released a limited edition box set, 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions, featuring every take of every song from every day of the recording sessions, plus the single versions of "Down on the Street" and "1970". On August 16, 2005, the album was reissued by Elektra and Rhino as a two-CD set featuring a newly remastered version of the album on disc one and a variety of outtakes (essentially highlights from the Complete Fun House Sessions box set. Jack White contributed a quote to Pop biographer Paul Trynka's liner notes to the reissue, in which White dubbed Fun House "by proxy the definitive rock album of America".
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