The White Stripes, White Stripes - White Blood Cells

White Stripes

Some songs are good. With this band, you either like their style or you don't. Not much in between. April 10, 2008

A bit long? Maybe, but they beat their way out of "the" band clique. 3 1/2 stars

In a sea of ever evolving (and at the time of this albums release an increasing release of albums) "the" bands, it has been hard to try and find an album by an artist that was worth the time of day, holding onto the nuevo-garage band sound that makes up traditional rock and roll in an industry that has been plauged by corporate rnb, britney spears, the backstreet boys and hip hop with no credibility (crunk sound comes to mind). So far the crusade is a failure: while it's certainly been fun to have around, a garage rock revival hardly seems the way to revive an often stiflingly traditionalist genre.

That's not to say it isn't good music, of course. It's just hard to understand when "RAWK" became such a commodity that having it made one impervious to critical analysis, and VERY sudden interest in corporate america only added to the flames (maybe it was a pre-emo thing?). These bands (the Strokes, the Hives, the Vines, the Modey Lemon, etc.) are almost exclusively mundane in both form and skill. Thus they have left little to the imagination.

Which makes the White Stripes the best of this revival-era. Their forms are all traditional, and terms of style, they're seemingly much more varied than any of the competing brand bands.

White Blood Cells actually gets better when you listen to it over and over. The first time through, it's hard to see past "Fell in Love With a Girl". The most directly garage-rock moment on the album, it's also an early candidate for the single where the big budget video comes from. I may not have ever gotten around to the rest of the album were it not for "Little Room", a quirky, jazzy little number that prophetically rationalizes major-label jumping.

But the rest of the album deserves the attention: "Hotel Yorba" and "I'm Finding it Harder to Be a Gentleman" are almost as immediate, and "The Union Forever" and "The Same Boy You've Always Known" surprise with their subtlety and almost pure genius that is Jack and Meg. And things are tied together with a hidden sexual tension that might resonate between jack and meg, but thats not for me to comment.

Things aren't perfect, of course. The damn thing's too long, with it's 16 tracks, I couldnt but think there was an easy cut of a few tracks, shorter album maybe, but more effective with the overall picture. It gets to that point where you'd rather be listening to almost any other band to get past those moments where its dribble.

A classic white stripes album. Not their best, but certainly awesome in its own magnitude nevertheless.
February 20, 2008

AN ELEPHANT A LITTLE LOW ON IRON

White Stripes' early attempt with White Blood Cells is a decent release that undermines their potential, which would come to surface in the followup, Elephant. At best, White Blood Cells highlights the work of a band trying to recreate a sound already put out by Foo Fighters, only to somewhat miss being in their element.

A serious effort to produce a masterpiece just did not seem to be there. The songs, individually, sounded good, especially with Jack White's energetic vocals. Compared with Elephant, however, White Blood Cells reflects a mere garage band type project. The instrumentation was there, but artistic direction seemed lacking. The creative humor and gothic pensiveness did not consistently blend together.

Don't get me wrong. This is a good CD, but I don't think that it will stick with very many for five years after the first listen. Elephant, on the other hand, has that magnetic appeal to it.

But hey! If White Blood Cells is what it took to lay the groundwork for outstanding future releases along the lines of another Elephant, then great!!
December 19, 2007

White Blood Cells

What more can I say- Meg & Jack rock! I love the eclectic sound and the dramatic sound they created. One of my top 10 CDs. October 7, 2007

Their third album remains one of their greatest

What has most struck me about the White Stripes is how astonishingly consistent they have been. Their first and eponymous album was excellent, but they got much, much better on DE STIJL and have stayed pretty much on that level ever since. They are often described as minimalists, but I've never been able to make much since of that. To me they sound as wonderfully ornate as a band consisting of only two people can. It is true that Meg White is a wonderfully primitive drummer, but few musicians today can trot out the varied bag of tricks that makes up Jack White's remarkable repertoire. He seems to me to be the most endlessly resourceful musician working in America today. What is amazing about that is he has more or less continued to work in the same blend of blues and garage rock with healthy doses of country tossed in for flavoring. I suspect that what many mean by calling them "minimalist" is that they only have a drummer and guitarist. Nothing else quite adds up.

There is a fine documentary on the Pixies entitled loudQUIETloud whose title hints as the core of the White Stripes' aesthetic as well. Jack White's music is all about contrasts, whether loud/quiet or harsh/soft or muscular/delicate. One of fine example of this on the album is the superb "I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman," which contrasts the softly sung verses with hard driving musical bridges. But even the sentiments expressed in the song are contrasts. Jack laments that his good manners are fading away, but then belies the sentiment and tries to justify his rudeness: "If I held the door for you/It wouldn't make your day."

DE STIJL represented a huge improvement in Jack White's songwriting, but he is even sharper in this one. The album is littered with great songs, including a few that are nothing short of masterpieces. "Fell in Love with a Girl" is to this day one of the White Stripes three or four greatest songs, played and sung at a frenetic pace, Jack, who belongs to the school of rock performers who believes that if lyrics are worth singing they are worth singing clearly, barely able to keep up lyrically with the rest of the song. This is another song that belies the notion that they are a "minimalist" band.

There are probably only 4 or 5 White Stripes songs that I haven't enjoyed listening to repeatedly from all their albums and none of those are on this album. I might not quite like this album as much as ELEPHANT, but it is close. But I don't think I like any initial group of songs on any of their other albums as much as I love the four that kick this off. "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," "Hotel Yorba," ""I'm Finding It Hard to Be a Gentleman," and "Fell in Love with a Girl" are so stunning that they diminish the rest of the album by contrast. That is not to say that there aren't great moments. "We're Going to Be Friends" is as great as those first four songs and many other songs on the album are memorable. But no group of songs after those first four is as strong.

If you are in any sense a serious fan of contemporary rock music there isn't a single White Stripes album that doesn't fall into the "must own" category. You really need all of them. August 9, 2007

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