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White Stripes - Elephant
You know, for a band in search of such earthy authenticity, the continued media-friendly contrivances of the White Stripes can really grate, including the new one that declares that Elephant was recorded on all 'pre-1963' equipment. (Why? It's not as if Lightnin' Hopkins insisted on a 1920s recording desk). And yet despite all that, the Stripes really do produce stunningly genuine, public-be-damned blues/rock. Witness Black Math or the brilliant troika of The Hardest Button to Button, Little Acorns and Hypnotize, songs so basic you could programme early 80s computers with them. Or the incredible Ball And Biscuit, which manages to sound vividly fresh and thrilling while being about as innovative as Frances Rossi's hairdresser. The inevitable cover, Burt Bacharach's I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (eerily reminiscent, in both sound and emotion, of Nirvana's Pennyroyal Tea) is, along with fantastic opening single Seven Nation Army, the Stripes at their straight-ahead, stripped-down rocking best. Meg White is the big winner here; her work on songs like Hypnotize confirm her as the most fantastically brutal and primeval drummer since Scottie Ashton himself. Her Mo-Tucker-like singing turn on the classy, if derivative, In The Cold Cold Night is another winner. Generally, Elephant is bigger and harder than its predecessors. The duds are reduced, most of the twee childhood shit is gone, the rock-outs are louder and more unforgiving, the blues more whimsical and vicious. Ultimately, the great oxymoron at the heart of the White Stripes may be their greatest strength. Elephant is far from perfect but then again, that's rather the point. In a world where Chris Martin is regarded as some kind of indie godhead, The White Stripes are absolutely vital.
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Des Fitz
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