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The White Stripes, Elephant (V2/Third Man Recordings)
reviewed by john wenzel
Elephant bounds into view with the formidable
"Seven Nation Army," possibly the best opening track
The White Stripes have put to tape. Its muscular,
descending bassline (actually a guitar through an
octave pedal) hits with such force that Jack White's
screechy vocals sound positively tentative by
comparison.
He whispers - playfully, hoarsely - as the rhythm
embeds itself, kick drums thwacking against studio
walls, snares snapping like dry fingers. Sing-songy
falsetto soon turns to abrasive chanting. Restraint is
tossed aside and Jack howls, unleashing his fury on
the guitar, hands sliding up and down the neck with
brutal precision.
The thrill you get from these opening chords, as raw,
succinct and gloriously amped-up as they are, is akin
to hearing Is This It or Oh, Inverted
World for the first time: you sense you're
waist-deep in a contemporary rock masterpiece, and
only getting deeper. The Stripes engage in a number of
firsts on this album (actual guitar solos, vocals by
Meg White) and if you're a diehard fan, you'll be
pissing yourself with glee. The casual listener,
however, may be less impressed, and for the same
reasons they were on previous albums.
Elephant, as everyone knows by now, is The
White Stripes' crushingly anticipated follow-up to
their 2001 breakthrough disc White Blood Cells.
As market-savvy poster children for the garage rock
revival, Jack and Meg White have been criticized and
lauded for any number of repercussions their music has
had on the current scene, and justifiably so. But what
this type of social-context criticism obscures is the
basic tone of their songs and the visceral impact it
has on listeners. Doesn't anyone care if this is a
good party album? The Stripes have never disappointed
with their sheer energy, or their ability to
synthesize a host of worthy influences. Authenticity?
That's another matter.
This issue becomes somewhat prickly as the album
develops. "Black Math" is a bouncy rocker with
typically hyperactive vocals, the chorus of which
recalls "Fell in Love with a Girl" (which in turn
recalled The Pretenders' "Middle of the Road.")
"There's No Home for You Here" recycles "Dead Leaves
and the Dirty Ground" through a Queen filter. The Burt
Bacharach cover "I Just Don't Know What to Do with
Myself," despite the radical mood change, is still
cloying as hell. "In the Cold, Cold Night" plants
Meg's thin, tentative vocals atop a picked electric
line, recalling a pleasant but second-rate Astrud
Gilberto. A bit of Creedence-style slide guitar
lubricates "I Want to Be the Boy…" while "You've Got
Her in Your Pocket" is a surprisingly intimate
acoustic pool hall ballad.
It's good to hear that fame hasn't made the Stripes
afraid to leave mistakes in their music: "Ball and
Biscuit" may feature several less-than-perfect
instrumental moments, but the antiseptic lure of
digital technology is nowhere to be found. This song
cranks up the attitude with bald sexual grunts and
some splintered but intuitively brilliant guitar
solos, bulging at over seven minutes. "The Hardest
Button to Button" and "Little Acorns" sound more like
The Cars practicing in a tight garage than the Stripes
in a big British studio. The rest of album varies from
blistering blues-punk ("Girl, You Have No Faith in
Medicine") to cheeky folk ("It's True That We Love One
Another.")
Repetition in these songs is inescapable, given the
limited instrumentation and Jack's seeming four-chord
guitar knowledge. You've gotta wonder how many
variations still exist in the ole Zeppelin-Lite trick
bag. Is there anything here that hasn't been done
before, and better? Even well-meaning stuff comes off
as ultimately pointless. Jack takes great pride in the
vintage, all-analog production of these songs.
Mentions it a few times in the liner notes. But the
fact that 96% of Elephant's copies will be
purchased on a digital medium kinda cancels out that
whole sound-purist, fidelity-range thing. The
difference will be inaudible to most fans, even if
they buy this on vinyl and play it on a $500
turntable.
To be fair, this album will probably get its ass
kicked more than it should. Hype is a bitch, as the
Stripes well know. It's hard to do anything right when
you have the weight of the world's self-important
music critics on your crotch (myself included). But
that comes with the territory, another thing I'm also
sure they've learned by now.
"Postmodern art rock thinly veiled as blues" seems to
be the consensus on this album among writers for other
leading music rags. I won't argue with that. I will
add that loud-ass guitar chords, succinct rhythms, and
impassioned playing do much to make up for the lack of
originality. Like The Strokes and The Shins, the
Stripes are reverent of their influences, in spite of
the layers of irony and in-jokes. When the music's
this fucking good, authenticity becomes a side-issue.
Issue 13, April 2003 | next article
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