I have determined that Jack White is perpetually busy. He recently was in the news along with his now ex-wife for throwing a “divorce party”, which I thought was odd at the time…er, I guess I still do. But musically he has also been busy. The Danger Mouse/Daniele Luppi collaboration yielded a single with White entitled “Two Against One”, which is an infectious spaghetti Western-type song, with its flamenco stylings and slinky beat (as a matter of fact, the collaboration featured the musicians that did the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, a fantastic Western). White also just put his band the Dead Weather on temporary hiatus to focus on record production for his Third Man Records and is contemplating reforming one of his other side projects, the Raconteurs.
The White Stripes, though, will always define White. Along with ex-wife Meg, White’s the White Stripes were known for their three-minute explosions of sound that featured loud guitars, simple but powerful drumming, and intriguing lyrics that would most frequently focus on love and relationships but would also venture into social issues and other topics. With each record critics would find more and more appreciation for what the White Stripes were doing and would gain a better appreciation for Jack White as a modern musical force. Not every song was a success, but each record would reveal a maturation in the White Stripes’ sound and lyrics. The pinnacle of this maturation was Elephant, the topic of this blog.
# 12 – The White Stripes, Elephant (Metascore = 92)
The years 2002 through 2004 were an unbelievable time in Jack White’s career. To say it was a creative peek may be too strong a phrase, but consider that in that time period he was involved in two of the highest-rated albums on this list—Elephant (2003) and Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose (2004, which I have already reviewed). What powered Elephant more than any other song was “Seven Nation Army”, which preceded the album’s release and took off in the Billboard charts, reaching #1 on the Modern Rock list. White wails on guitar throughout while singing about overcoming those that try to bring him down, overpowering ill will until he is no more.
“Seven Nation Army” segues into “Black Math”, a song that takes the original framework of their garage rock songs from The White Stripes and De Stijl and refines it, with start-stop-start tempos and stronger lyrics. “There’s No Hope for You Here” stylistically prefaces the work he would do later on Get Behind Me, Satan and with the Raconteurs, with organs and harmonies supporting a basic rock sound. “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself”, originally written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, gets a powerful workout with great dynamics and an awesome vocal job by White (lyrically it fits the loose theme of the album about the death of a relationship). Meg sings “In the Cold, Cold Night” fantastically here, sounding eerily like Astrud Gilberto in “The Girl from Ipanema”.
These songs set up the overall groove of Elephant. There are straight-ahead garage rockers. There are softer, safer songs. There are regular rock romps. The songs show how the band has evolved and matured in sound. They also reveal the direction White was headed with future records, including his work with the Raconteurs and with the final two White Stripes records, Get Behind Me, Satan and Icky Thump. Dynamics have played and continue to play a major part in White’s songwriting. Has this been a detriment to his songwriting? Perhaps he’s focused on it too much at times, but overall I think his best material has derived from this.
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