Like the class valedictorian, you can’t help but feel a bit of
\nresentment\/jealousy to the White Stripes. Their inherent coolness
\nis unquestionable. They recorded their latest album,
\nElephant<\/i> for about $10,000. Jack and Meg White profess a
\ndeep love for some of the coolest icons of country music: Loretta
\nLynn and Dolly Parton. They’ve been basically exempt from the
\nbacklash other ‘The’ bands, such as The Strokes and The Hives have
\nsuffered. All the adoration makes you want to ask, “Are they really
\nthat good?”<\/p>\n
Well, if you’re looking for a reason to hate the band, you will
\nprobably have to look elsewhere than
\nElephant<\/i>. Sure, it contains much of the art-deco pretension
\nof their earlier releases, such as
\nDe Stijl<\/i> and
\nWhite Blood Cells<\/i>, but the album also contains some of the
\nloosest, bluesiest and flat-out rocking songs in the Stripes
\ncatalog. Jack White’s infectious swagger in the seven-minute jam
\nfest, “Ball and Biscuit” is enough to shake most of the elitist
\ntrappings the band occasionally succumbs to.<\/p>\n
\nWhite Blood Cells<\/i> was a surprise hit last year. However, a
\nbig reason for that is because of their fashion sense and their
\nvideos (most of the population see the White Stripes as “The Lego”
\nband from their landmark video, “Fell in Love With a Girl”). With
\nElephant<\/i>, the band could have buckled from their hype.
\nInstead, they actually took advantage of their artistic freedom and
\nexperimented with lower guitar sounds, almost bordering on sounding
\nlike a throbbing bass (see “Seven Nation Army”). Meg White even
\nrefines her drumming skills to create a powerful whallop in most of
\nthe tracks on
\nElephant<\/i> (let’s face it, for most of their three previous
\nalbums, Meg White’s drumming was as subtle as a falling piano).<\/p>\n
Meg White finally gets a chance to helm the lead vocals in the
\ncreepy track, “In the Cold, Cold Night.” It is one of her many
\nhighlights in
\nElephant<\/i>. Still, her shining moment is her hyper-drive
\ndrumming in “You Have No Faith In Medicine.”<\/p>\n
If you can consider them flaws, The White Stripes’ cleverness in<\/p>\n
Elephant<\/i> can sound contrived to some listeners. In the
\nclosing track, “Well, It’s True That We Love Another,” Jack and Meg
\nplayfully structure the song around their much-publicized
\nrelationship. A self-help voice-over is played before the band rips
\ninto “Little Acorns” is a nice novelty, but you find yourself
\nfast-forwarding it to the music.<\/p>\n
Still, if you question the band’s sincerity, listen to their
\nincredible cover of Burt Bacharach’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do
\nWith Myself,” or Jack White’s heartfelt lyrics on “I Want to be The
\nBoy To Warm Your Mother’s Heart.” In the liner notes, the band
\ndedicated
\nElephant<\/i> to the death of the sweetheart. In this age of
\nirony, you will have to judge for yourself on whether or not the
\nband is being sincere. Personally, it’s far more fun just to
\ndiscard the pretension and let
\nElephant<\/i> rock you where it counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6892],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37678","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-white-stripes","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37678"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37678"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}