Tuesday saw the release of reissues from the Stooges, and if there are other 35-year-old discs out there anywhere with the same energy, menace and freshness of these two titles, well, their name is Kick Out the Jams. Other than that, who else was making music like this in 1969? Plenty of acts came and went that traded in the fuzzed out garage rock that was a few years old already by that time, but no one being taken seriously, save for the Stooges' Detroit brethren in the MC5 were doing this.

The Stooges' self-titled debut is a revelation. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "No Fun" are the obvious standouts, but the entire disc is a marvel. Consider the other albums that were released that year. Abbey Road, Five Leaves Left, Arthur and three from Creedence Clearwater Revival were among the best. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Gilded Palace of Sin, Nashville Skyline, the Band and Let It Bleed showed a clear folk-country leaning, while the Soft Parade and Trout Mask Replica represented to two poles in "out there" music. Led Zeppelin and it's successor hinted at the heavy guitar rock to come.

But the Stooges only true peer was the MC5, and that band veered from the in-your-face approach after that explosive debut. The Stooges, meanwhile, refined it, offering the much better Fun House and Raw Power. The latter disc was remastered by Iggy Pop and reissued in 1998. Now, with these two expanded reissues from Rhino, the band's trio of studio discs is back in shops and in sparkling high fidelity.

These reissues join a new two-CD best-of set from Iggy Pop that includes much of the best material from the Stooges three discs. He sat for a fascinating and entertaining interview on Fresh Air back in July in which Terry Gross asked about the his status as "the Godfather of Grunge." Were the Stooges ahead of their time?

"I would have to say the rest of the world was behind its f'in time," he said. Amen.