The White Stripes
The White Stripes and De Stijl
[Sympathy for the Record Industry; 1999/2000; r: V2; 2002]
Rating: 8.3/9.0
Hell yeah, hot freaks. Jack and Meg White's first two raucous platters are coming back at you in the
biggest redistribution by a major label of still-available albums by fake-sibling bands beginning with
the letter W since Elektra fancified Gene and Dean Ween's early catalog! For you efficient readers
resistant to some patented Pitchfork scaffolding because you spent the night deciding which Gargamel
quote to use in your chat profile, here's the quick review: once upon a time, the White Stripes were
the half-mortal, half-Godzilla missionaries sent to lead rock to its promised land, and their rekkerds
measured up to the hype. These albums contained thunderous, honky-soulful, lacerating pop at various
stages of evolution. De Stijl is better, but only by noses. The end! Anyone still Stripe-hungry,
read on:
You probably weren't given the choice of not admiring this fine pair. Their charm is so bullying that
their fans have become like hog-tied soldiers in the days of impressment, and their sudden crossover
ubiquity threatens to vault them into a saturation-backlash a la the Spice Girls. This week's highlights:
BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA: An undergrad Design major turns in her final project-- a giant, circular
red-and-white UPC symbol, inspired by the White Stripes' peppermint motif.
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA: Two nervy fellas with hopes of being Jerry Bruckheimer's production assistants
become the it-boys of their apartment building's pool when they pump White Blood Cells; their Aiwa
boombox's shuffle feature begins fortuitously with "Fell In Love with a Girl."
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: A group of conscientious dropouts walking home from a coffeehouse drumming
circle are hooted at by some ballcapping Thads in a Pathfinder. One of the dropouts yells a retort. The
Thads park, exit, and dry-gulch one of the group's males, who will require stitches. Blasting from the
Pathfinder the whole time: the Stripes' "Expecting."
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO: Taking his cue from a canny jukebox selection of the treacly "We're Going to Be
Friends," a well-meaning mouth-breather out on the town seduces a tat-dappled Zippo-grrl with his knowledge
of the White Stripes. When he goes to pee and service his coifed mane, he hears the kitchen staff jamming
on "I Think I Smell a Rat."
MTV: Yep.
GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA: After the forced closure of her aquarium store, a girl gets high and goes to a
24-hour Wal-Mart with a permanent marker. Her plans to vandalize the pet department are thwarted by a
potty-mouthed fifteen-year-old who runs a shopping cart over her left foot, dismantling her flip-flop and
her pinky toe. The cart's sole contents: a copy of Is This It and a notepad listing the Strokes and
the White Stripes, with the Strokes crossed out.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Packed venue Black Cat becomes a hub of debate when a guy, sporting a stocking cap
despite the broil, claims that every incarnation of the garage-blues revival is better than the Stripes.
A straight-edge female eventually punctures his facade by tricking him into praising a nonexistent Detroit
Cobras album.
SOY-BASED AIRWAVES: National Public Radio does a feature bit on the White Stripes. The band's shtick gets
more airtime than their music. Fans are reportedly color-coordinating their outfits at Stripes shows,
further shearing the curtain between indie rockers and Delta Chi Omegas at homecoming. 'Brother' Jack
righteously plugs the blues, and 'sister' Meg joins him in a shout-out to Mom.
EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN: General Mills test-markets White Stripes cereal. Participants report a rise in
general sexiness; the swagger index quadruples. People greet each other with cool, quick nods, slightly
puckering their lips. Mail carriers make devil-horn hand-gestures to suggest that tailgaters pass.
See, Ryan Pitchfork makes us wear these teal beepers 24-7, even if we're going to a waterslide park. I
was working at Cinnabon at the mall last week, and he beeped me, and I called him back and he said he
wanted to hear me eating a Cinnabun while I talked to him. I reminded him I'm hypoglycemic; he reminded
me that he was the boss. He promised me free Barfsurfer and Hymenella promos. I ate for him, and
then he said, "Let's review the old Stripes records that Sympathy never sent us." And I said, "What's
the point? Nothing new can be said about the Stripes." And he said, "Just compare and contrast, like in
high school. Reinforce their greatness. And leave yourself out of the review this time; you're like an
aborted fetus trying to win your parents' love. Richard-San doesn't pull that needy shit." Then he asked
if there was a Gingiss Formalwear at my mall, because he wanted to hear sequins crumpling next time we
talked. "Get gussied up," he said, and I said, "Ai'ight," and he said, "Audi 5000." Cinnabon fired me,
but I was tight with this skeezer at Successories, so we just switched aprons.
I'm delaying actually confronting these records because they don't conjure a hunched-before-a-besotted-Compaq
vibe. This band's rock is so imposing that you want to be in some kind of motion to describe it. You
shouldn't wuss around it, or intellectualize to it. You'll headbang involuntarily. You've got to hear
the Stripes' albums; if I explain them to you, you'll picture a novelty band that peaks on a public access
talent show. But Jack White's in that league with Isaac Brock; some weird, earnest quantity about their
best work (realness, maybe?) deflates irony-dependent artholes, pointing out how lodestone-free our
hands and pockets remain. You don't want to be the lame-ass clicking a Microsoft mouse in the presence of
this adrenal crunch.
Witnessing White Blood Cells and then De Stijl and then the self-titled debut is similar to
watching the undeveloping photograph that begins the film Memento's retrograde arc. The listener can
hear how the band leapfrogged to greatness with each release.
The first adjustment that De Stijl requires is that you get used to the guitar not taking up as much
awesome space as it does on White Blood Cells. And in places, the first-day-with-the-new-rhythm
drums are "Hotel Yorba" sloppy, infinitesimally behind. And Jack sounds nasal every now and then. That
said, these strong songs hold their own against Cells, as Jack scrapes the strings here and lets
them shriek there-- and when she's on, Meg's channeling of Little Red Riding Bonham leaves potholes.
People pounce on the Stripes' Zep-a-billy, but damn, you've got to respect a band that, while covering Son
House's "Death Letter," compresses all the atmosphere of stadium dinosaurs into a streetcorner act. No
mere duo's made this much noise since Eric B and Rakim.
The acoustic sweep of "I'm Bound to Pack It Up" manages to homage the Who, Floyd, the Kinks and Zep, not
to mention its lofty adherence to the rambler-wanderer tradition. The crisp "Apple Blossom" could be a
Revolver outtake. The Stripes' blues obsession is more evident here than on Cells; in
addition to the dedication to Blind Willie McTell, songs 7-9 feature some mellow, mellow slide leads, and
"Hello Operator" rips into a harp solo. These gestures are performed with the same heedful regard as the
Stones' similar nods-- a hymnic tone prevents them from oozing into blues-aping caricatures, or the diluted
Caucasian appropriations that clog rock history. The wailing vox of "Let's Build a Home" suggest AC/DC's Bon
Scott, another blues-influenced metal god whose act was great when it stuck to making brassy rock about the
hollowing universals of fumbled desire and spiritual homelessness. You can barely buy the heartbreak
because it's delivered so cockily.
I've alluded to a lot of old-school bands (whoops-- left out Sabbath), but I contend that De Stijl
is progressively derivative, as opposed to, say, the Mooney Suzuki, who should be paying royalties to a
handful of bands, some as recent as Mudhoney. The Stripes' oddly conventional subjects (domesticity,
marriage, optimism) distinguish them, and they have heartiness of style to spare. The disc's packaging
juxtaposes the band's Willy Wonka fetish with museum pomp; the liner notes contain a manifesto on simplicity,
and God comes first on a list of "those who helped in the making of this record." Opener "You're Pretty
Good Looking" best combines the band's skills, and hints at Cells' heavy gleam. This song flexes
serious pop muscle, and contains the non-sequitur and surrealist touches that give Cells its mystic,
mythic penumbra (backs are broken, thoughts are stolen, the year 2525 looms). Only Cells' guitar
ballast keeps the legitimately exciting De Stijl in check; the skeleton of the Stripes' breakthrough
was clearly already intact.
The debut is, predictably, an altogether more raw affair, with not enough variations on the theme. Meg's
balancing presence is the only thing saving the album from induction in the saloon-door-violating big-dick
guitarchives. The album's Detroitness is transparent, and its blues aren't nearly as reconciled with its
punk. Some of the staccato riffs seem to have speech impediments. No Beatles ghost triggers the Ouija
board. A slightly distorted Jack yelps and squeals and sounds tinny by about the twelfth cut, a far cry
from the visceral prophecy and pronunciamento of Cells "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground."
The record is saucy, but ultimately not as arresting as the others, even though the arrangements are just
as winningly unadorned. Well, except for the tunes where Meg's approaching army tank-tread drums are
reverbed, as if the band is masking their spare sound the way straight-to-video horror movies attempt to
camouflage their low production values. "Sucker Drips" is uncharacteristically thin, and the sassy plod
of "Astro" dates back to the, uh, (cough) Cramps. The cover of Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee" displays
excellent taste and replaces the original's violins (and Emmylou Harris) with some dope organ, but the
tempo-- and Jack's half-tribute sinus inflection-- bring the party down.
Colossal offerings abound, though: the three chords that constitute "Little People" embody the sound of rock
insisting on its own supremacy. The ode to alienation "When I Hear My Name" is rife with blistering
"mmmms" and "whoah-ohh-ohh-ohhs." A different Blind Willie, this one a Johnson, gets an uncredited updating
on "Cannon," a rousing rendition of the apocalyptic "John the Revelator." Robert Plant's quivering androgyny
gets a thorough reworking on the bratty, double-timing "Screwdriver." Every Brit band who's ever blown an
amp before you were born gets amalgamized on "Jimmy the Exploder." And ass is simply kicked by the falsetto
twists and Pepsi-bottle percussion breakdowns of "Broken Bricks."
The debut rocks in turbo-increments, but its statement is fussy and loping. A standoffish, reclusive element
(manifesting itself in Jack's scream of "don't wanna be social") is more disagreeable and difficult than the
entirety of the other, more accommodating records to follow. The puerile veneer that has driven some to judge
the Stripes as stunted in their tweens is yet to emerge, although many fans in their thirties have voiced
gratitude for a band that can be counted on to help them forget that they have kids to beat and dishes to
break.
This scrappy band's not dumb and it ain't a fluke-- the Stripes could do their rock 'n' roll homework in
their sleep. They linked underground noise to American roots, validating it at long last! Thank fate that
the Stripes are finally making the indie rock lobby less effing stuffy, after all those tweedy, post-Tortoise
Ph.D'd doops cramped everybody's style! I want somebody to play their guitar like the four horsemen just
unplugged all the teleprompters! Who else could pull off the two-person thing? (Not Swearing At Motorists.)
The uniform thing? (Not The Make-Up.) The candy? (Not Sammy.)
Feel no shame in climbing aboard the Stripes' double-decker fanwagon. Just act like you're getting one of
these albums for a less-hip friend, or purchase something really obscure along with it, like a Vocokesh or
When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water album. Hooray for civilization, I didn't talk covetously
about Meg's bod! We don't need another hero! Uncross your eyes! There's gravel in the bubblegum! This
ain't juvenilia, bitch, it's rawk!
-William Bowers, June 18th, 2002