White Stripes take minimalist approach too far
By LIAM FARRELL
Scene Music Critic
It may have taken longer than expected, but the anti-boy band/anti-Britney/anti-marketed pop music movement has begun. Along with a new legion of singer/songwriters and bands such as the Strokes, minimalist artists reminiscent of underground '60s rock and early punk music have taken their music to the masses. Like the Strokes, the White Stripes have also been hailed by music critics everywhere as the saviors of the currently languid and boring music scene.
Originally from Detroit, Jack and Meg White are an ambiguous group of people. No one is really sure if the two are brother and sister, husband and wife or maybe just former lovers. One thing is for sure, however, and that is that the duo plays the barest form of music possible in the rock world.
With Jack on guitar and sometimes piano and Meg on drums, there are no extraneous instrumentations on their new release, White Blood Cells. Everything on the album is stripped to its barest parts.
Some albums grow on you; the music may not hit you at first, or the lyrics may not have been fully meaningful the first time around. Initially, I thought that White Blood Cells was one of those albums.
However, after repeated listenings, I realized that I wasn't the problem — the album was. The more you keep wanting the White Stripes to show you the musical genius that is constantly being attributed to them, the more irritated you get at the tired punk riffs being passed off as something new.
Overall, it feels like the White Stripes are cheating themselves out of finding something musically meaningful. There is some obvious lyrical talent on the album, but some songs have lines that make no sense, and some tracks, like "I Think I Smell a Rat," are so ridiculous they belong down in a basement, away from all sunlight, and even more importantly, away from my ears.
Musically, Jack White shows trememdous promise. He plays some excellent riffs on the album and is very good at making his guitar whine like a dying cat. On the other hand, Meg White has to be the most expendable drummer in the history of music. Her beats are boring and reminiscent of a middle school band. She really needs to practice more.
When listening to an album by one of the new "minimalist" groups, the question has to be asked if playing music along these lines will ever truly produce an artistically successful career. The rules of the genre were laid out by the Velvet Underground and American punks like the Ramones, and the form was developed and perfected by The Replacements on their masterpiece, Let it Be. Why listen to the White Stripes if someone else has already done it better? It's like the current state of jazz. Do I really want to listen to Waymon Tisdale when I can listen to Miles Davis?
Originality is rare to find these days, and White Blood Cells ultimately sounds like 40 minutes of a band cheating themselves out of true develpment. The best songs are when the band stir out of their sulky "we were born in the wrong generation" mood and play upbeat country numbers like "Hotel Yorba" and unrequited love songs with Paul McCartney vocals like "The Same Boy You've Always Known."
There are few songs on the album that show some spark. "The Union Forever" is a bizarre love song set to music straight out of a cheesy horror film, and it works rather well. But in between all of these good songs are packed tired, boring, "we wrote this in 10 minutes" songs.
Ironically, when the White Stripes actually conform to some sort of musical rules their music is at its best. "Now Mary," a great country tinged song, produces the most promising lyrics on the album: "What a season to be beautiful without a reason." It's too bad the White Stripes don't take their own lyrics to heart.
White Blood Cells does not produce the fragile beauty that is shown on The Velvet Underground and Nico or on The Replacements' Let it Be. Instead, it sounds like the death rattle of a musical form. There is not enough room for development in their music, and a drastic sort of change will be needed for them to create anything artistically interesting over the next few years. They have fallen into the Pearl Jam trap: going too deep into a type of music that isn't going to let you change your sound enough to keep the listener interested.
The White Stripes have some growing up to do in terms of their musical and artistic outlook. Nothing they've written can make me want to listen to them instead of "Pale Blue Eyes."
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, February 26, 2002
