Reclaiming A Sound

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Gimme Danger? More Like Gimme A Break! I’m Trying To Talk About Art, Here!

When Iggy Pop remastered Raw Power in 1997, it created an alternate timeline. Anyone running to the store to pick up that album on CD for the next fifteen years or so might not know which version they purchased. Hardcore fans knew the difference between the original, tinny David Bowie mix, sure, but casual listeners looking to discover old music might have had their ears blown off by Iggy’s version without understanding why. I used to have strong feelings about this split. To me, albums serve as a snapshot of history. If I can dial up Steely Dan’s Aja on my turntable, I feel like I might understand how how people experienced the majesty of studio precision in 1977. But, when I found used special edition of Raw Power featuring both versions passed on separate vinyl, I found myself stuck.

The Iggy Pop mix was my own first introduction to the album, and having, uh, acquired a version online to add my my iPod, I wasn’t prepared for the direct sonic assault heading my way. Also, I was in love. James Williamson’s guitars were shredded into the red, and the Asheton brothers’ rhythm section was pounding out low-end that made the band groove in a way a group from Detroit always should have. I couldn’t believe that an artifact from 1973 sounded so modern. I was right and wrong at the same time, of course.

The album was recorded after Iggy Pop wriggled a new solo recording contract into a reformation of the Stooges, three years after they had imploded due to heavy heroin usage. David Bowie had taken a specific interest in rekindling something inside Iggy Pop after borrowing a bit of the man’s persona for Ziggy Stardust, and the original mix overseen by Bowie was like sonic razor wire. Williamson’s guitars were front and center and knife-edge sharp, the vocals were mixed down, and the bass was all but absent. Bowie had wanted pure fury on tape, and to some degree, he captured it. Compared to the almost sterile clarity in the production of Fun House, Raw Power felt like hearing the band play a live set with crappy gear.

Iggy’s remix changed a few core points of the soundscape. He cranked Ron Asheton’s bass, he added low-end back to the drums, he turned his own vocals up, and he pushed James Williamson’s guitars until they distorted even further. The last little tweak removed the clean overdubs in the guitar solos, bringing them back to the tone and timbre of the power chords layered on the rest of the album. It sounds incredible. And the main reason it sounds incredible is that it was mixed and mastered for a digital format, and that was the only way I had been listening to it.

In contrast, Bowie’s mix so is thin and tinny that it barely registers as music in my earbuds. There are a variety of extended digital reissues of the album from the last ten years, so any curious mind can easily swap between the two versions to see the contrast themselves. But judging that original mix through digital media is unfair. It was recorded on analog equipment, mixed on analog equipment, and mastered for an analog format. Even if I was able to snag an original pressing, to be honest, I couldn’t recreate the conditions of someone listening to it for the first time in the year it came out.

I’ve been meticulous in the last year. I had my turntable tuned and timed, had a new stylus installed, and upgraded my receiver. Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk has never sounded so lush. But a wannabe audiophile set up isn’t how most Stooges fans were going to listen to the record. It was more likely that album was being played on a portable turntable with a built-in speaker in a teenager’s bedroom than anywhere else at the time. If there was magic in that experience, it’s impossible to recapture.

It’s not just music, either. Art is difficult to translate into the future. Stanley Kubrick shot Barry Lyndon with special lenses that could capture scenes lit only by candlelight, but it’s also a big reason why the movie looks like absolute shit on my 4K TV. It was shot on film, and it was meant to be projected on film: my TV never stood a chance. But it’s more than just a question of the transfer from film to digital: if I’m watching the movie because it’s available on HBOMax, there’s no way to even know which version of the film transfer I’m watching. Seriously: there’s controversy around it.

It’s a mess to try and unwind these snaking versions in a modern media landscape. We’ve never had more access to music and movies before in our life, and yet, we’re constantly running into the limitations of streaming. Spielberg has added and removed walkie talkies from E.T. twice now, but if I see the movie pop up in my recommended list, which version will it be? No matter how bad I want it, I can’t see Han shoot first without a super rare DVD edition. Converge remixed You Fail Me, the original version wiped from streaming services everywhere.

Even the dual LP I picked up isn’t safe. While it does contain both the Bowie and the Iggy mixes, both of them were remastered specifically for this release. It’s become an issue of control: no matter how badly I want to dig into either version of the album, I have to let go of any notion that I’m able to compare them side by side on this format. I’m not good at ceding control.

I think about Milwaukee. Over the summer, I detoured to the Milwaukee Art Museum after an IKEA run. It’s gorgeous. The building is out on the lakeshore, a modern white structure that looks like the sails of a modern ship, and once you’re inside you lose yourself to the space immediately. But I was hot, dusty, and dehydrated. I wandered the halls for awhile, somewhat impressed, until I was stopped dead in my tracks. There was a small Kay Sage painting on the wall, and something about the form and color of it grabbed my insides and twisted them in a way I hadn’t felt from a painting before. It was incredible. But the painting couldn’t do that on its own. It wouldn’t have the same effect to describe it, or even link to a image of it online. The power of that painting relied on seeing it in person, and seeing it as a small frame in the back corner of the top floor of the museum. Without the context of time, place, and even my own mood (tired, cranky), I wouldn’t have been able to feel everything that painting offered.

Art is a moment. That’s a statement that rings true across every medium, no matter how much we want to deny it, but try listening to Mountain Goats’ “No Children” after a divorce. Or Mitski’s “Working For The Knife” while feeling trapped by your own art. I can never recreate hearing the original Bowie mix on LP just like I can never recreate hearing the Iggy mix on my iPod while riding the train in Chicago in 2005. For one, I’ll never be 20 years old again. I’ll never feel the weight of that age yoked to my neck, and I’ll never be able to hear “Search And Destroy” for the first time again ripping tension out of my spine.

If I scream down an empty hallway, no matter how shattering and terrifying it may be, I can never reclaim that sound. It might echo for a moment, and then it’s gone.

So if art is a moment, that means that art, like all things, is temporary. And if art is temporary, then trying to wrap a deadened fist around its wispy edges is futile. In that regard, I suppose, we should just be thankful for whatever format of something that still exists. And when our children ask about something that maybe have changed our lives, there might still be some version we could show them.

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.