This album is the debut release of Michigan's now famous Stooges - although at the time they were quite vilified for their minimalist and droning approach. The actual sound engineering on this record has often been overlooked and it represents quite an exquisite capturing of an experimental and chaos driven guitar band of 1969. John Cale, who produced the album, adds a tasty Velvets flavoured Viola across "We Will Fall" which is a slow mystic chant over a quiet wah guitar lines. An odd piece, more than likely filler to make up the Stooges lack of actual songs at the time, it nonetheless fits stylistically with the rest of the album and still holds a charm of its own viewed almost 40 years on. The late Ron Asheton's guitar playing across the rest of the album is crisp and tasty three chord powerage with scuffling and squalling lead lines that hint strongly at his finer playing that would emerge on album two, 1970's 'Funhouse'. Asheton throughout maintains locked in with his with brother Scott on rolling and clattering drums, bassist Dave Alexanders rubbery and succinct bass lines, and the monotonal delivery of vocalist Iggy Pop. Pop's own recollection of the creation of classic "No Fun" recounts that it was based on Johnny Cash's "I walk the line" with a similar meter - and with a stipulated 25 words per song makes it the archetypal blueprint for the later punk explosion which occurred across the world in the mid 70's. Some of the tunes are certainly stronger than others but the stand out tunes of "1969", "Real Cool Time", and "Little Doll" make this an album to return to again and again.