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Minute-by-Minute Review: White Stripes, Icky Thump
Link: http://www.phawker.com/?p=4037
Hey, hey, hey, look what's dropped at Phawker.com, a live, streaming preview of the new White Stripes album, Icky Thump. So why not reclaim my title of King of Minute-by-Minute Reviews from Mr. Moderator, who recently used my throne to kiss Paul McCartney's sagging butt? Nice job, Mod, but this is my turf!
Icky Thump opens with "Icky Thump", on which Jack and Meg do their patented Led Zeppelin via T-Rex stomping simplicity routine to perfection. There's something slightly dark and mystical about the overdubbed solos, like the band is promising to enter its Presence phase, but White sings with too much glee and places his voice too far up front to worry us about leading us down that album's black hole. Beside, White Stripes don't have a multi-talented bassist to take the wheel during their captain's junkie slip.
"You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told)" has a real 1973 AM cock-rock hit feel, like something a heavily mustachioed 1-hit wonder might have struck gold with when I was first noting the interesting differences between boys and girls. So joyous and friendly, like that song "Signs" or that song about making the cover of Rolling Stone. Get me a K-Tel release featuring this one! Digging it, and digging yet another cool-sounding guitar solo. Fuck all you slow-moving, mandolin-playing bands out there! This is why rock bands entered the studio. The rest of you should set up a stereo mic in an abandoned church.
"300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues" is a relatively tender change of pace, but even this song packs a snaky rock punch. Oh man, listen to that tiny, volcanic guitar solo! I don't know what's going on, but I want to listen to it again. Load up another hit, brother. Is this White guy about the last guy on earth who knows what to do with The Power and Glory of Rock? He's so ON, so far, that I'm finding the elephant in the Hall - Meg's drumming, or lack thereof - to be no issue whatsoever.
What's this song, "Conquest"? Who asked for this mariachi band nonsense on Track 4 of what had been headed for the best album I've heard in ages? Save this crap for a Tarrantino soundtrack!
OK, what's next? I like the opening chords of "Bone Broke"! Meg sounds like she's going to play a full beat before this song's over, or is that a drum machine playing the same timed tom fill that threatens to sound like it was played by a real drummer? Oh hell, this is all beside the point. This song's starting to get underway. I'm liking this sinister verse, but something's missing. Maybe this is a rough mix that was leaked to the public? Oh that's right, these guys still can't pony up for a friggin' bassist. I'll try to be a bigger man and overlook this fact. I know it's part of their schtick, like the color-coordinated outfits. Less is more, right? God forbid a mustachioed bassist would slide up to the upper registers of his Gibson Firebird bass.
Follow up:
Here's "Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn", the Led Zep III number, with Hari Krishna percussion and a chanting vocal. I'm a sucker for this stuff, so I've got no beef with how hokey this kind of song is, in fact, any band with a sense of '70s pomp and circumstance owes it to themselves to crank out one of these bad boys. Even Humble Pie did a song like this.
"St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)" features more bagpipe/Indian mysticism and the spoken vocals of Meg White, I guess (or a sped up Jack). The music's cool, but hearing this slight voice makes me miss the former drummer/wife of Apples in Stereo. That's not a compliment.
"Little Cream Soda" is essentially an instrumental with Jack doing the talk-singing routine. This makes three songs in a row that strike me as self-indulgent filler. Come on, man, what happened to the promise of those early '70s, hard-rockin' AM radio hits? The candy-ass fun and games of the last few songs don't even have the allure of the junky hell of the bad songs on Presence. Let's get back on track, Jack.
The comeback is up to "Rag & Bone"...which starts out with hokey "off-mic" talk between Jack and Meg. God I hate this shit! It's the musical equivalent of comic books. You nerds can have your comic books, your rockabilly hair and tattoos, your horn-rimmed glasses, and all that totally phony hand jive that only works when the 110-pound singer is surrounded by a band like Aerosmith in their prime, a band with a bass player, goddammit! Here's more of that hand jive. It's 2007, White Stripes, let the kids dig through used bins for ZZ Top albums if they want. I'm not buying this bubblegum version of that crap.
Meg will surely impress rock critics with her "restrained" drumming on "I'm Slowly Turning Into You". Likewise, some bookworm will do handstands over the implied identity issues examined in this non-song. Jack White should wake up each morning thanking his maker for his abundance of charisma. To top it off, the guy has a tremendous understanding of how rock records function. A little solo section enters this song long after I'd completely given up on it that makes for worthwhile listening. Like Zeppelin did, I love how he uses the blues for its artifice. It's a much more honorable way to tap into a tradition that's not quite our own than any pseudo-blues scholar way we're too often used to hearing.
And I guess that's the end of this minute-by-minute review. I hope you found it helpful, and I hope it colors your listening experience for years to come.
22 comments
i love meg white so much it's KILLING ME.
ed, you're doing a fine job.
I listened to the album last night. It's OK. Sometimes Jack White sounds like the singer from Sweet, especially that first song, where I expect him to break into 'Ballroom Blitz'. Doing so, however, would require a drummer who could play that fast shuffle beat on the snare.
i do not allow my intentions to marry meg white bias my opinion of her drumming.
she's only, like, the best drummer ever.
ya see, t & a ARE my hooks. and vice versa. as my lone post in that inane thread asked: who on earth are YOU to dictate my way of perceiving (or hearing) to me?
never did. that's just who i am. so quit using your considerable way with words to abuse me (and others) for not seeing or hearing like you. sheesh.
as for the white stripes album, i wish i could actually hear it. i've only heard icky thump and "rag and bone" (the hoky intro doesn't bug me at all, but i can see why that would bother people). your review so far is great!
And change the beauty of the melody, until it sounds just like a symphony, you know what I'm sayin'?
It's also the first clip or song I've heard from them and really thought they needed a bass player.
Regarding Meg White: You guys are weird. I can accept that she's some people's ooh-la-la taste while she's not mine, and I guess I can agree to disagree with others about whether she's the worst instrumentalist currently playing for a major act or, um, adequate.
But man, she's got a bad Look, in the sense that the great drummers make it look easy, and she makes her rudimentary playing look really really hard. That's what's always bugged me about her.
I agree with Ed. This album starts strong and then fizzles out in a hurry. I too like the way White uses the studio.
I agree with Rick regarding Meg's Look and, more importantly, perceived degree of difficulty while playing rudimentary parts with long pauses.
I've got a long way to go with this one, I've listened without prejudice only twice. My initial thoughts are not positve, However, I've thought each album since White Blood Cells has gotten worse. This one might be a step back up though.
rick and mod, i don't really care about how difficult it seems for meg to play drums. she's got a nice way of carrying herself in general...i have no problems with her, looks-wise OR "rock look"-wise. then again, she could wear a burlap potato sack and i'd be happy: pretty face, nice skin, nice hair. fuhgeddaboutit.
and seriously, i know she's a lousy drummer. i defend her on the same grounds i defend mo, ringo, and chollie when the "rock jocks" call them "metronomes compared to moon, bonzo, and mitchell": as long as the parts she plays work with the songs, i'm happy. and before all you persnicketty contrarians get upset, i'm not saying she's even as good as mo, ringo, or chollie, okay? i just use the same logic to defend her against the school that claims virtuosity as a necessity in rock.
on "icky thump" (the song), is any indicator, jack has slipped in his ability to write easily played but effective parts for her. ah well.
and MAN do i EVER wish she'd use a ride cymbal instead of a crash when it's time to ride. that incessant "shhhhhhhhhh" really effing hurts.
conquest does indeed spew gigantic chunks into the troposphere. too bad.
i must have this question answered: is anyone else here as tired of jack's use of that octave thingy on his guitar?
i really DIG 'rag and bone' by the way....
yeah. at first i thought it might just be bad sequencing, and i'm not entirely convinced that a better sequence wouldn't have helped, because there are some really nice songs further on, esp. "effect and cause".
HOWEVER: that song is hardly enough to offset the "martyr", "catch hell blues", and "target", which is a murderer's row of ponderousness that leads to....the even more ponderous "ghost".
as individual songs, each one is a nice effort, but there are too many mid-tempo numbers. "target" is a bit more upbeat, but that chord sequnce is never ending.
Does it, or does it not, just seem like there used to be a whole band, including a noisy but technically uninspired synth player up front, and this fop air-guitarist-with-guitar control freak fired them, minutes before show-time, only keeping the drummer (who may have been said synth player until a quarter till)because SOMEone had to make some more noise, and it may as well be a girl?
I am not going to bust on them for eschewing a bass (and bass player.) I am going to bust on them for eschewing a whole band, instrumentation being what it may. If your only innovation is to not have a bass, but you keep playing songs that cry out for support, and which adhere to a very standard restatement of rock's golden age of Zep through whatever, then the lack of bass player becomes merely a lack. I actually own one of their CDs bought on a friends rave recommendations. And several songs have, like this one, a brilliant 5 to 20 seconds in them. But then he just treads water until those 5 to 20 come around again, and it isn't enough for me. Ugh. I'd say "snooze...," but I can't sleep with that godawful racket going on!
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