Raw Power

After the Stooges split, Pop signed to Columbia through the management company MainMan and went to London to write with James Williamson. After trying British musicians they brought the Asheton brothers back, and the band re-formed as Iggy and the Stooges with Ron Asheton on bass. Early demos were cut at RG Jones Studios in Wimbledon and Olympic Studios in Barnes. The album itself was recorded at CBS Studios in London with the engineer Mike Ross-Trevor, from 10 September to 6 October 1972. Pop said Columbia insisted on two ballads, Gimme Danger and I Need Somebody. All eight songs were written by Pop and Williamson.

Pop's own mix put most instruments in one channel and the voice in the other, and Bowie was brought in to remix it. He remixed it at Western Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in October 1972, and Pop said Bowie's idea was that the drummer should sound like he was beating a log. In 1997 Pop remixed the album for release on Legacy, and the result is very loud. Williamson and Ron Asheton said they preferred Bowie's mix. Williamson told Crawdaddy that Bowie's mix is really weird but is the one that is historically significant.

Columbia released it in 1973. It spent three weeks on the Top 200 and reached 183, and Search and Destroy and Shake Appeal were issued as singles. Lenny Kaye wrote in Rolling Stone that the Stooges had used the studio for more than recapturing their live show, and Nick Kent later called it the greatest hard rock tour de force ever summoned up in a recording studio. Rolling Stone placed it at 125 in 2003, and Pitchfork named it the 83rd best album of the 1970s. Stuart Berman of Pitchfork wrote in 2010 that it became the album most responsible for giving the Stooges a life after death. A Legacy Edition with a live 1973 Atlanta set and a Masters Edition came out in 2010, and a 50th anniversary edition in 2023.