The Stooges - Open Up And Bleed (1974)

This is my second attempt at putting together a fourth studio album for The Stooges, but it's notoriously difficult to do - not because there is a lack of material available, but just that the quality of what is there is so variable as to make a coherently flowing album almost impossible to compile. For this one I've tried all the reputable box sets - notably 'Heavy Liquid' CD4 - 'Return To New York City' and Music Club's excellent 'Original Punks', as well as the 'Year Of The Iguana' bootleg, to find the best quality takes available, and for those that aren't quite up to scratch I've edited them so that they are of a similar feel to the rest of the songs. In this reconstruction I've avoided any tracks that later turned up on 'Kill City', with the exception of 'Johanna', as this is a different take without the saxophone. In the end there are only three songs that I wasn't entirely happy with, but these are the best takes that I could find and so they're better than the others that are out there.

Track listing

01 I Got A Right
02 Tight Pants
03 Johanna
04 Cock In My Pocket
05 I'm Sick Of You
06 Rubber Legs
07 Open Up & Bleed
08 Gimme Some Skin
09 Head On
10 Wild Love
11 Scene Of The Crime