There aren't very many bands that are consistent in delivering "the goods." As I write this, I'm trying to think of a band...any band, that still making great records on a regular basis. U2? Well Bono is so busy saving the world that the band's output has become somewhat sporadic. The Stones are all but dead (the last record was great...for corpses). Pretty much everyone from the '90s has vanished. Green Day could qualify...if they put out a few more records. Music fans are pretty much screwed.
Oh, wait...there's The White Stripes. Jack and Meg White (who were once MARRIED and not siblings (despite what they tell you)). Yes friends, it's true...believe the hype: The White Stripes are the only awesome rock band that is still producing en mass. All the other pretenders to the throne...well they're just that--pretenders. No one (save Robert Pollard) beats Jack's sheer volume of songs. The guy is prolific (he's in two bands...he produced Loretta Lynn's last album), prolific with a capital "P."
Two years ago there was GET BEHIND ME SATAN, two years before that the epic ELEPHANT. This year we get ICKY THUMP. Like all music greats, Jack has broken out of the punk/alt-rock box the world would like to put him in. Sure, I love "Fell in Love With a Girl" as much as the next guy...but I don't want him to re-write it for the rest of his life. The 2003 album, ELEPHANT, was The White Stripes perfect record. It was loud, raucous, and a logical step from the band's breakthrough WHITE BLOOD CELLS. Then two years ago they put out GET BEHIND ME SATAN. Nearly everyone I know hates that record. Why? True, the single "Blue Orchid" sounds like vintage Stripes...but the rest of the record was a strange, wandering, slightly unfinished mix of Mississippi blues/country/rock. Both Jasper from the Plane Nine Rock Podcast...and my love Leah HATED this record. Leah probably won't remember this...but she actually asked me to turn it off when I was playing it in my room. Jasper went so far as to say that the band tried to "trick" fans by releasing a rockin' single while the rest of the record was so different.
I have mixed feelings about a few of the tracks of that record...but overall, it was a great album. So here it is, two years later...and there is a new White Stripes album. How is it?
ICKY THUMP is a return to the heavy/blues influenced rock of the early albums. I'd say it falls somewhere in between the punk of WHITE BLOOD CELLS and the British Zep-Rock of ELEPHANT. That's a good thing. The album starts with the title track/lead single "Icky Thump." A brilliant, loud, vicious, anti-anti-immigration song. The guitar work is frantic and blistering, the lyrics biting as Jack takes on the double standard that is America:
"White Americans, what?
Nothing better to do?
Why don't you kick yourself out
You're an immigrant too.
Who's using who?
What should we do?
Well, you can't be a pimp
and a prostitute too."
Mexico seems to be one of many themes running throughout ICKY THUMP (check out the crazy cowboy getups on the album cover) . The Corky Robbins cover, "Conquest" features what can only be described as a Mariachi band from hell. The Stripes are notorious for using a very simple guitar/drums formula (there's only two of them after all) but ICKY THUMP is actually very textured and features a couple of different instruments, including an organ (and bagpipes of all things). "I'm Slowly Turning into You" and "A Martyr For My Love For You" are two excellent tracks that utilize this instrument.
One thing that has always fascinated me about The White Stripes is how two people can sound like an entire ("Seven Nation") army! People are always trying to get White to add more band members...but if you ask me, the Stripes do alright all by themselves. The wall of sound on "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told)" is proof positive of that. Speaking of "You Don't Know What Love Is" it's the best song on record...and if you only have $.99 go on iTUNES and download it. Totally worth the dollar.
The slower, blues numbers, like "300 M.P.H Torrential Outdoor Blues" and "Catch Hell Blues" could easily be covered by Muddy Waters or Leadbelly (if they were alive) and nobody would bat an eye. Jack is, besides a taxadermist (he's a weird guy) and a rock star, a blues historian of the highest order. Like Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, White does his best work when he's paying homage to his personal blues heroes.
It's not really "groundbreaking" or "life changing" but in a summer with few new releases worthy of your CD player, ICKY THUMP is an oasis.
Jason gives ICKY THUMP an A+
2 comments:
One thing I like about them is how Meg seems genuinely happy most of the time. And how she plays Weird instruments, like http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2005/06/whats-meg-white-playing.html
Meg is a hottie...there is no doubt about it. But those two are so damn weird, I mean, would you hang out with your ex-wife/husband for so long? What must their new mates think about all this time they spend together? And why lie about being siblings?
When WHITE BLOOD CELLS came out I was going to buy it (lots of good songs that made it onto the radio). But before I could I saw them the first time they ever played SNL...oh man, they were so weird...I was like "no thanks." An article in GUITAR WORLD about ELEPHANT changed my mind about 'em (I still don't have WHITE BLOOD CELLS or any of their earlier stuff).
Post a Comment