WHITE STRIPES

White blood cells

LP/CD, Sympathy for the record industry

The White Stripes are proof that there is really no such thing as a revival of guitar-fuzzed bands. Just because one or two newcomers of that type are duly being praised over the top, doesn’t change musical history. On the other hand there are bands and labels going at that style for a long time. This is circa the fourth full length LP by The White Stripes and no one except Long Gone John himself is able to keep track of the stuff Sympathy For The Record Industry has released. (which is one of the problems with that label – overprovision fuels the feeling of mediocrity.) On the other hand, someone might say, that these four LPs are just a result of the usual prolificousness of SFTRI and that usually the forefathers of a hype never earn the laurels but some up to then unbeknownst youngsters do. (See Mudhoney / Grunge). But that is hall for history to decide. I’ll take my bet with the upper statement.

Meg and Jack White bang away heartily at their drums and guitars, write songs with a lot of originality and individuality, and even though you might think you have heard that guitar sound or that riff before, you surely never heard it quite in that way. Jack White’s squealing way to sing and the stomping riffs add some nuisance to the songs, which is made up with by the weird structures the songs are provided with. Weird in a garage-rock-sort-of-way, of course. The songs on “White Blood Cells” owe just as much to the Stooges and the Monomen as they do to John Lee Hooker or T-Model-Ford and there is also a big part of Hank Williams and the Waco Brothers in there. Actually, Meg and Jack travel through the history of rock’n’roll in America, scouring up scrounges here and there, adding them together in their very own stripped down style so what you get is a raw, stripped patchwork of intriguing blues-rock-songs. How much of that is calculated and how much is straight from the belly? And in how much does intellectual distancing, as visible in the stylish dandyness of the two on the cover, play an important part? The feeling that it isn’t all that serious, anyway? I can’t say. After all a song like “I smell a rat” could have been penned by Bobby Conn.

Songs like “Hotel Yorba” or “The same boy you’ve always known” might be the pure stuff, the true and honest effort of emotion and art. Even though executed in the expected raw style, they feel alive and fitting the way they are. At other times you can just feel the sly blinking of the eye as they smile about the joke-that-no-one-will-get (except for them) that they have just recorded. Thinking about it, that shouldn’t put you off. The product is music, soundwaves, a song and as soon as that is recorded, the amount of power the artist has over it is very small. And as soon as the song is in your head, you can do with it whatever you like. I mean, teenagers put a lot of emotion and reality into songs that are no more than hand-tailored pieces of mass-production. And that is true, to them at least. And maybe the joke is even on the one who thinks he found the joke, due to double-irony. As like the photos on the innersleeve, where the dark figures threatening our couple on the front cover, are revealed as very welcomed parts of the mass-media. Get it?