Let's Talk About The White Stripes

I saw The Stripes kick off their tour in Van about a year ago or so, and if you think they're good on disk you NEED to see them live. It was fucking awesome, like a week after Icky Thump came out.

Um, yeah. Meg has improved over the years so they are just the right amount of raggedy.

"First dance" song at my wedding.

This is probably where I lose my cred, but I don't have the 1st album or De Stilj. But I've always found GBMS to be better than Elephant, which, while good by most standards, is my least favorite of their last 4 albums.

I honestly don't do a lot of albums - I mainly do singles here and there off of iTunes (which I realize is the worst way to get into a band), but I've heard a LOT of the White Stripes stuff and I love the way they've progressed and matured over the years. I was hooked with "Fell In Love With A Girl," but I'm really glad they've sort of moved away from that heavy distortion, lo-fi sound. I dug it then and I still dig it when I revisit, but their new stuff is so much richer without being overproduced, and it's such a blast to listen to.

1. White Blood Cells
2. Elephant
3. The White Stripes
4. Icky Thump
5. De Stilji
6. Get Behind Me Satan

White Blood Cells is a Great album, sequenced and paced just perfect. It's lyrically a lot more emotional and personal than any of their other albums, and it hits all of the different kinds of songs Jack White is great at. It's loud and intimate and angry and heartbroken and joyous all at once.

Elephant is definitely the best produced, but some of the songs (I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart, The Air Near My Fingers, There's No Home For You Here) feel a little uninspired, which hurts it on the whole. Then again, it also features some of their best songs as well (Seven Nation Army, Black Math, Ball and Biscuit), and it's one of their most cohesive albums.

The White Stripes is definitely them at their rawest and most unrefined, and I can see how that'd be a turn-off for some, but I love it. As a fan of lo-fi music, I really dig the noise. Lot of really excellent rockers on this one (Broken Bricks being my favorite). It's a little messy, a little long, and a little bit too samey, but I love it anyway.

Icky Thump is a really strong record with a lot of really excellent songs, but as a whole it's their least cohesive album. It also suffers from sounding a lot like their earlier albums with little innovation that defines it. "Icky Thump" and "Conquest" aside, all it's songs could have easily appeared on other albums. I like a lot of songs from it, but as an album I'm not so big onto it.

De Stilji was a wonderful step forward for the White Stripes, and goes in all sorts of directions, setting the groundwork for a lot of which they'd later explore musically. It begins and ends very strong. Unfortunately, the middle is very weak with a lot of forgettable songs ("Sister, Do You Know My Name?", "I'm Bound to Pack It Up", "Jumble Jumble", "A Boy's Best Friend"). Still a good album worth checking out.

Get Behind Me Satan is very odd. I'm glad The White Stripes were willing to experiment with other instruments and some real good came from it (The Nurse, Doorbell, Denial Twist) but most of the album just sort of slogs through. "Forever For Her" and "White Moon" are definitely my least favorite songs in their entire catalogue, dull and uninspired and sloooooow. But on the other hand, "As Ugly As I Seem" is definitely one of my favorites. It's not a bad album at all, just not very strong.

And are the White Stripes good live?

Oh yeah.
They're good.

I think De Stijl is criminally underrated and Elephant is criminally over rated. White Blood Cells is their best. Get Behind Me Satan their worst. Icky Thump in the middle.

1. White Blood Cells
2. De Stijl
3. Icky Thump
4. Elephant
5. The White Stripes
6. Get Behind Me Satan

Not sure about songs. I'd have to think about it for a bit.

If you haven't checked it out, the Live at Blackpool DVD is electric. Highly recommeded.

A lot of the Blackpool dvd is on youtube, if you wanted to check out some of the performances.

This is one of those bands I find very difficult to rate albums for. Seriously, it's such great stuff. The world is better for having the White Stripes music inhabiting it.

I have to agree. They've had six albums and none of them have been bad.

"Jolene," their best by far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zskw3mCQFL4

They are fantastic live, i'd say try and catch them as soon as you can. I quite like their cover of Walking With a Ghost by Tegan And Sara http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYyoU8kKPQ

not bad, but seeing Jack White higher than Slash on Rolling Stone's Greatest Guitarists of All Time made me cry, puke, and laugh at the same time.

It may be because he's a clear choice when dredging up modern guitarists for such a list, and Rolling Stone was wary of seeming too far stuck in the past (which they are anyway).

I like the Stripes. I think they have fun making their music. It's on the radio but actually isn't pretentious shit.

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/...ce-jack-1.html

I've seen them three times live and each time they kicked every kind of ass.

Yep, that was the first I heard of them, when our local university radio station were playing Hello Operator and Death Letter, and I loved them right from the start. It still felt like they were exploding to be heard so it has an urgent, firey desperation that the subsequent albums don't match as consistently, although White Blood Cells is super close behind.

I thrashed the shit out of Party Of Special Things too, you can't go wrong with Beefheart.

I just don't get this band. It's simple and formulaic. The drummer chick is about as simple as can be, as is most of their music. I don't see why so many bands get absolutely rail-roaded for being so talentless, and these guys get a free pass because they're some kind of revelation? It's catchy, sure, but there's nothing to it, really. Face it, they're the Brett Ratners of music. They know how to perform their art, but there's nothing Earth-shattering about the way they go about it.

Pick Consolers of the Lonely just to listen more of Jack's stuff. He isn't formulaic at all. And Meg is perfect since Get Behind Me Satan.

Nope, The White Stripes may not be the greatest band who ever took the stage but the Brett Ratners of music are stuff like Nickelback, Linkin Park and Three Doors Down. There's no swagger or non-conformity in those bands, there's no fearlessness, they're apes and followers. When The White Stripes burst on the scene they were completely at odds with the safe, predictable McAggression of the nu-metal and pussy-punk bands that dominated rock music. The White Stripes helped bring some fire and personality back into a rock world clogged with angsty crybabies and fakers like Good Charlotte and Creed and any number of wet indie rockers, and Jack and Meg still sound unique amongst the bands in the charts today.

At their best The White Stripes get raw and weave in the surreal like Jarmusch or Herzog, miles from the cookie cutter, workmanlike Ratner way of doing things. Songwise what they do is often not complicated structurally, certainly not compared to some other popular rock bands like Tool or The Mars Volta, but complexity of structure's not a prerequisite for interesting music so that's not a black mark. I listen to John Lee Hooker's foot beating down on a hardwood floor and it speaks twelve times more menace to me than any metal band ever managed with double kick drums and cookie monster vocals. There is power in simplicity and The White Stripes harness exactly that.

They take the traditional and warp it and the fact they're using those traditional pop or blues structures as a launch pad is why the performance shines, because there's so much space to let the expression explode. Explosions need oxygen and the minimal approach of The White Stripes invites those kinds of fireworks, especially in the live arena where they somehow put on shows more potent and incendiary than most bands manage with four or five members. They won't go down as one of the greatest ever, in that top division with The Stones and Led Zep etc, but even now, a couple of years past their peak, they can kick most other bands' asses in their sleep.

I love how Chewers are finding increasingly creative ways to bash Brett Ratner.

On my lunch break: "Fuck! This is the Brett Ratner of soup!"

Actually, I wasn't really meaning to bag Ratner out in particular. I was just saying that there's - as Bucho put it - a workmanlike quality to his output, and that's about as far as it goes. And as with The White Stripes, there's nothing wrong with that - it just doesn't leap out at me or stay in my head for days is all.

Having said that, if I was in the same lunchroom when someone uttered "This is the Brett Ratner of soup!", I think I would most likely pass out from laughing.

The White Stripes are more like the Jim Jarmusch of music.

It was something I said that made sense to me at the time but looking back, it doesn't really fit. I guess you could look at the minimalism, stark black and white, and cultural clashing of Stranger Than Paradise and find similarities in the White Stripes fashion and music styles, but really it was just a bad metaphor.

I guess my point was, just because something is minimalistic does not mean it's not artful.

Case in point: minimalists.

It's more about containing some rage and release it only sometimes. I found it hard to describe with images (that's why most of the reviews on WS sucks perhaps). It's like like at certain parts of their songs if he wasn't playing all that loud he would collapse, it's about certain urgency to do/said something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6WVD...next=1&index=8

news! http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...ast-late-night

I've come to the conclusion that if you comment on how bad of a drummer Meg White is, you're missing the point. And Jack is an amazing guitarist, but he doesn't try to be a guitar god, which to a lot of people, makes him a guitar god. Catch some of his live stuff and you'll see what I mean.

As far as covers go: I'm a huge fan of Lovesick. Jack's got this angry vulnerability in his voice, and it's beautiful.

Dead Weather is some good stuff, too, if you ask me.

Lovesick is inside a B-sides collection and is like a maelstrom when I got to this theme. I regret the lack of love of Get Behind me Satan among the fans.

I think it's more than fair to say that "technically" Meg White isn't a "good" drummer. But having seen the Stripes live a few times, I have to say that she possesses enough charisma to make up for her shortcomings.

Ack, wrong thread.

I guess what I mean is that some people dont' seem to get that it's completely intentional by Jack White. It's not as if White put her in the band thinking she was great, or just couldn't find a good drummer so he put his ex-wife on the kit. He wanted that pure, primal (and decidedly amateur) sound. He's even said on occasion that he makes sure Meg doesn't even practice drumming during the off-season. Criticizing them for it at this point seems like complaining that there's no bass guitar.

Now I am really enjoying Horehound after a kinda cold first few replays...Rocking Horse is really great...

http://www.thirdmanrecords.com/

 

 

Officially done.

This sucks, but they retire having the distinction of never releasing a bad album, and three or four great ones.  I can't think of many other bands who's "worst" album would be something on part with Get Behind Me Satan.  From there, we have their debut, Elephant, Icky Mettle, De Stilj and White Blood Cells.  Not bad for fifteen years.  

They really did go out with an amazing set of albums. My biggest regret though is never getting to them live.

 

I'm sure they'll never get back together, ever.