The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog

The Stooges (also known as Iggy and The Stooges) is an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003. Although they sold few records in their original incarnation and often performed for indifferent or hostile audiences, the Stooges are widely regarded as instrumental in the rise of punk rock, as well as influential to alternative rock, heavy metal and rock music at large.

During the psychedelic haze of the late '60s, the grimy, noisy and relentlessly bleak rock & roll of the Stooges was conspicuously out of time. Like the Velvet Underground, the Stooges revealed the underside of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, showing all of the grime beneath the myth. The Stooges, however, weren't nearly as cerebral as the Velvets.

Taking their cue from the over-amplified pounding of British blues, the primal raunch of American garage rock, and the psychedelic rock (as well as the audience-baiting) of the Doors, the Stooges were raw, immediate, and vulgar. Iggy Pop became notorious for performing smeared in blood or peanut butter and diving into the audience. Ron and Scott Asheton formed a ridiculously primitive rhythm section, pounding out chords with no finesse -- in essence, the Stooges were the first rock & roll band completely stripped of the swinging beat that epitomized R&B and early rock & roll.

During the late '60s and early '70s, the group was an underground sensation, yet the band was too weird, too dangerous to break into the mainstream. Following three albums, the Stooges disbanded, but the group's legacy grew over the next two decades, as legions of underground bands used their sludgy grind as a foundation for a variety of indie rock styles, and as Iggy Pop became a pop culture icon.

The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.

"I Wanna Be Your Dog" is a 1969 song featured on their self-titled debut album. Its memorable riff, composed of only three chords (G, F# and E), is played continuously throughout the song.

The 3-minute-and-9-second long song, with its raucous, distortion-heavy guitar intro, pounding, single-note piano riff played by producer John Cale and steady, driving beat, established The Stooges at the cutting edge example of the heavy metal and punk sound.

The lyrics have been described as evoking a sense of lubricity and self-loathing, a monument to a state of blue-collar tedium and alienation of their era, late 1960s industrial Michigan. This sense of working class disenfranchisement was widely echoed later by the Sex Pistols, Public Image Limited and Eminem. In 2004, the song was ranked number 438 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

" The above text is a mashup from AllMusic.com & Wikipedia."