According to music historian
Denise Sullivan,
The Stooges was "disavowed" by most critics; Sullivan nonetheless called it "a rock'n'roll classic". In a contemporary review, Edmund O. Ward of
Rolling Stone called it "loud, boring, tasteless, unimaginative and childish", while conceding that he "kind of liked it".
Robert Christgau gave it a
backhanded compliment in his column for
The Village Voice, deeming it "stupid-rock at its best", but did give it a "B+" grade overall. Daryl Easlea, writing for
BBC Music, called the album "rock at its most primordial. ... [the] album is the original punk rock rush on record, a long-held well-kept secret by those in the know." Mark Deming of
AllMusic commented, "Part of the fun of
The Stooges is, then as now, the band managed the difficult feat of sounding ahead of their time and entirely out of their time, all at once." According to Phillip Sherburne of
Pitchfork: "The album is unabashedly savage, fuzzy as a moldy peach, subtle as a hangover. Nevertheless,
John Cale's production on the album harnesses just enough studio magic to make them sound positively otherworldly, from the swollen low end, dark as a bruise, to the blown-out sonics of
Ron Asheton's guitar solos. Throughout, in unexpected pockets of silence, handclaps pop like fireworks." In 2003, the album was placed at number 185 on
Rolling Stones list of the "
500 Greatest Albums of All Time", maintaining the rating in its 2012 revised list, and dropping to number 488 in its 2020 list. The magazine also included "1969" in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Seth Jacobson, writing in
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, said that the album was "a collection of brilliant curios, which were neither full-on garage rock, nor out-and-out dirge." In 2005,
Q magazine placed "I Wanna Be Your Dog" at number 13 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Tracks". == Reissues ==