Raw Power '97 vs. '10

I previously posted this on another topic but thought it best to include it separately. Sorry if you're reading this twice.

As someone who first heard this record in '97 with Iggy's mix and then after only recently hearing the Bowie mix (in it's various incarnations - Legacy, cassette, embassy, sundazed, etc.), I have to say - I like both mixes for different reasons. The Bowie mix is stylized but lacking some balls and Iggy's mix is a little too ferocious with little finesse. All the carping about Iggy's mix is a little overstated if you ask me. Personally - his mix of Gimme Danger is WAY better. It reveals a certain majestic episodic quality to the song that's absent on Bowie's mix - especially the buildup to the electric guitar intro from James. Same goes for Penetration - I prefer Iggy's mix. However, it's nice to hear this record and not feel like my fucking ears are going to bleed - which is why Bowie's castrated mix is nice. It's just nicer, not as belligerently angry sounding but still ferocious.

I read on here somewhere a comparison to Iggy's mix and the grunge years. That's BS. Grunge was dead by 94-95. As a person who lived in Seattle during these years and loved all that music I can honestly say that Iggy's '97 mix is not an appeal to grunge fans. If anything, it was an appeal the burgeoning new Garage thing that was happening in the late 90's with the White Stripe kiddies.

Somewhere in between is the perfection we all long for but it appears that this will remain a mental image and nothing more. Unless of course they do a 40th anniversary James & Iggy mix, which as we all know - is a possibility.

Just my thoughts - feel free to tear them apart at will, I would expect nothing less.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Iggy's mix was unadulterated garbage. Bury the drums, bury the bass, turn everything up into the red and super-compress everything. Iggy, generally not known for his studio engineering abilities, really outdid himself here. His former Stooges bandmates couldn't believe what he did, and after hating the Bowie mix for years, they ended up thinking it was vastly better than Iggy's handiwork.

There are a few parts, each only a few seconds long, that are really stellar: the intro to Raw Power, the xylophone on Penetration...but those few moments are overtaken by the sonic sludge Iggy created. That said, I agree that the intro to Gimme Danger is fantastic. Again, many little moments like that are ruined for me by the super-mega compressed sound.

The "New Garage" movement wasn't until the early 00's. The White Stripes didn't even start performing until '97 if I'm not mistaken. I think the "grunge" groups did a lot to raise awareness of the Stooges, and that album in particular, so even though the actual MUSIC may not have influenced Iggy, he probably saw all these kids talkin' up the album over several years and decided the time was ripe for him to turn up the dials. Make sense?

In a different thread, I mentioned that after purchasing the Iggy mix, I immediately ran to ePay to grab an old copy of the Bowie Mix. That says it all right there for me.

The Iggy mix I feel was aimed at satisfying the need fans had for a LOUD AGGRESSIVE ROCK mix and perhaps to redress the hurt that he felt when Bowie was bought in way back then.

Iggy's mix was also maybe good for a new late 90's ROCK audience. But it missed out on the brooding art statement that Bowie introduced into the mix. Whether you hate Bowie or not he understood the need to create a mood that lifted the music out of a straight rock ghetto and he did this by creating a sound. I like the way that the structure of each LP side is Angry, Angry, Angry and then Broodingly Moody. Because Broodingly Moody can break out again into Angry, so easily - as it does each time I turn the LP over. The Bowie mix creates that dark brooding atmosphere.

If the Bomp Rough Power Cd was famously labelled as 'Bowie Free' then the Iggy mix should be labelled as 'Subtlety Free'.

And for Iggy to say in that video that Bowie didn't understand their music is wishful thinking. 'We were so misunderstood' he seems to say. Sure, and now you sell insurance on the back of the bus in front of me.

I don't especially like Bowie but I do like his Raw Power mix and double ditto the 2010 remaster.

Another vote for the Bowie mix, it's violent and weird. It's impossibly dynamic and a lunatic testimony to the electric guitar. Few other albums has the sheer balls to sound this fucked up. On rare occassions something goes wrong in the recorging/mixing process, but rather than destroy a record, it creates a bona fide classic with sound of it's own. The Velvet Underground's White Light White Heat is one of these, I'd argue that the MC5s thin proto-punk Back in the USA is another. Raw Power as mix by Bowie belongs in this company.

Given what I've said above, it's inevitable that for me at least, fixing those problems is bound to destroy some of what made it a classic in the first place. That said, it's hard to imagine a more bone-headed attempt than Iggy's mix. It sacrifices attack for LOUDNESS and is so smothered by a layer of digital fuzz that it just screams incompetence. I've sat through it about three times and can't imagine the circumstances which would persuade me to do so again. I prefer my old vinyl copy, I prefer the supposedly awful CD with the Bowie mix.

Ive only ever heard the original Bowie mix CD.

I prefer the '97 mix with the exception of a few tracks. I think 'You're pretty face...' sounds better with the Bowie Mix but after years of listening to the 'violent mix' it's hard to hear the tracks 'softer'

Remember that "mixing" and "mastering" are two different processes. It is possible to listen to some of Iggy's mixes without the ridiculously overcompressed mastering, thanks to A MILLION IN PRIZES, RAW POWER Deluxe Edition, THE LIFE AQUATIC ost, etc. In my opinion, Iggy did a good (but not perfect) job of mixing but the mastering should have been left to a professional mastering engineer such as Steve Hoffman, Barry Diament, Greg Calbi, Bob Ludwig, etc.

So I guess the UN LOUDED tracks we can listen to are


SEARCH & DESTROY
GIMMIE DANGER
RAW POWER (a million in prize)

GIMMIE DANGER
YOUR PRETTY FACE (legacy box)

Are the last two the same mixes as the 97 CD, or alternate mixes ?

seventeen wrote:

So I guess the UN LOUDED tracks we can listen to are


SEARCH & DESTROY
GIMMIE DANGER
RAW POWER (a million in prize)

GIMMIE DANGER
YOUR PRETTY FACE (legacy box)

Are the last two the same mixes as the 97 CD, or alternate mixes ?

Interesting idea here - I thought the Iggy mixes on the boxset sounded better than my '97 edition. I haven't heard 'A Million In Prizes' - have to pick this up

You can re-paint "Mona Lisa" or make sense of Salvador Dali's paintings by re-painting them,
but orginal is always the one and the only...

Million in Prizes is pretty well brickwalled too.

Well, I heard Iggy's version first, so after listening to Bowie's version it seems quiet and soft.

Igor101AD wrote:

Well, I heard Iggy's version first, so after listening to Bowie's version it seems quiet and soft.

The songs on Raw Power were so radically different that it took years and years of imitation from Punk bands that people became accustomed enough, so that they actually accepted it and enjoyed it...however, it might take another 20 years for people to accept the David Bowie's crazy mix.
And that's why Iggy tried to re-mix it...I first heard Bowie's version, so Iggy's re-mix seemed bit boring, aggressive yes, but Iggy's re-mix seemed to lack that classic "psychedelic echo" and "in your face guitar solos"...

Five Star Edge wrote:

I prefer the '97 mix with the exception of a few tracks. I think 'You're pretty face...' sounds better with the Bowie Mix but after years of listening to the 'violent mix' it's hard to hear the tracks 'softer'

It never fails to shock me when the original mix is referred to as "soft" or "weak". It might not be as loud as Iggy's ego trip of a remix, but it's probably the most in your face mix in the history of rock & roll. Crank 'em both and see which one knocks you on your ass, Iggy's all-faders-on-full approach, or Bowie's more artful, but no less brutal, treatment with the guitars jumping out to kick you in the face when you least expect it. Sorry to mix metaphors, but it's the difference between a bull in a china shop and a ninja attack.

Couldn't decide where to post this, as this is going on in two threads at once, but here's as good a place as any.

Re the "Bowie mix"? I know it makes sense as shorthand, but everyone knows that Iggy was in on that one too. It seems pretty unlikely that he just sat in a corner reading a newspaper the whole time.

Or, to put it another way, isn't it a bit of a striking coincidence that both "Bowie" in '73, and Iggy in '97, should have decided to mix Ron and Scott off the album?

If Bowie was telling the truth about the tapes, and I'd be surprised if it mattered enough to him that he'd lie about it, then just by handing over tapes that already had most of the instrument parts mixed down onto one track Iggy was pretty much assuring the final outcome. There's only so much Bowie could have done with/to a three track tape, in a not exactly "state of the art" studio, in the early seventies.

Re "Bowie" or Iggy, no question, the '73 mix is "Raw Power", the Iggy-update was just a tragically unfunny joke.