The White Stripes Album: “White Blood Cells”

In White Blood Cells, the Stripes are beginning to bloom into a legend. Jack White is obviously developing at light speed right now. Sure he sounded like some kind of Robert Plant novice on De Stijl, but on Cells he's what Curt Cobain should have done eventually with Nirvanna or what Mick could have been if he had taken Jumpin' Jack Flash to the limit. Don't get me wrong....Jack is Jack, no way is he a pale imitation of anybody else, no matter how famous they are. And without Meg backing him like she's the muscle in his spine there would be no Stripes at all.

Dead Leaves spotlights Jack's guitar at a time when he's running full tilt boogie. The essence of punk is in Fell In Love With A Girl, and there is time for quirky stuff where the song won't go away (like Hotel Yorba). All 16 tracks are solid, the CD is one that you will run over and over and over until it's part of who you are.

You really don't know how raw guitar can be until you hear the Stripes in full roar. And Jack will always catch you off guard.....slow downs that make you wanna burst.....triple chords that make you wanna dance....wailing shafts of sound that give you chills.....abrasive isn't the right word.....this sound is so harsh it can draw individual nerve fibers right out of your brain while you love every second of it. This is one that you have to hear to really be alive.

Stripes make you realize that even if Green Day were the best of their era, this is how much better they could have been; this is how the Stones must have sounded at the Crawdaddy Club in 64; this is why all those hype-bands like the Hives & Vines will never last; this is nothing less than the start of the 3rd age of rock and roll. These guys have it.....the blinding future of rock may be in their hands.

So I finally gave in to all the hype and purchased this album from The White Stripes.Since the summer hardly a week has gone by when I haven't read an article stating that this duo were the most exciting group in the world.Some people even stated that the last time they felt this excited about a group was when they first heard Hendrix or The Sex Pistols.After listening to this c.d. for quite a long time I've finally begun to subscribe partially to this theory.Yes the music is very raw and exciting.They do seem to have a very fresh and almost unique approach to some aspects of song writing.An example of this would be the tracks 6 and 7.Track 6 is a short song that has Jack White singing and warbling to the backdrop of Meg White's loud and bombastic drums.Then it breaks into track7-"The Union Forever"-guitar,shimmering organ and drums-but this song gets really interesting about 2 minutes in when we an acapella in a completely different rhtyhm sets in.

My one reservation about the White Stripes-well actually more just this album-is the lack of really memorable tracks.I mean this is a group who have been hyped far beyond any other group in the U.K. this year,and yet this album hasn't really sold much at all.Okay it's alternative rock but still you'd have imagined it may have had similar sales to say The Strokes.I put this down to the lack of really strong tracks.Having said that there are excellent tracks on this c.d.16 tracks in 40 minutes it's all pretty whirlwind stuff.The most obvious track is Hotel Yorba-which they also released as a pretty unsuccessful single-it's a real Alt/Country song-stomping rhtyhm,acoustic guitar,frenzied vocals and a simple chorus to die for.It stands out cos it's so different to any other track on the c.d.Track 8 is excellent-more shimmering organs,pretty raw guitar chords all set in a fairly slow tempo.Track 9-"We Are Going To Be Friends"-is beautiful lyrically,as the singer looks back on his early school days.The way he describes even the simplest and most common experiences are uncanny-you know the theory finding great beauty in everyday things.It's another acoustic track-one man and his guitar.There are some really good fast furious and very loud tracks-track 4 Fell In Love With A Girl is a case in point.The vocals are barely audible behind the thrashing of one very loud guitar-and then when we hit the chorus,a loose description-he sings like some sort of manic animated Hispanic mouse.That's another thing I really like about this album-the song structure is very different.It isn't verse,chorus,bridge,etc-many tracks don't seem to have a chorus at all.Maybe that's why it does take a good few listens to become in any way familiar with this album.

I think track 10 is slightly let down by some pretty weak vocals.The guitar riff is excellent and the piano is a welcome addition.I have heard people who don't like this c.d. pretty much put it down to having reservations about the vocals-and this track may be a good example of this.All is repaired though by track 12-"Aluminum"-it's very much like The Pixies at their loudest and most obscure.Basically it's one loud repeated half scream,half chant against a backdrop of loud guitars and lots of feedback-there is no tune as such,but it's pretty compulsive listening.Track 13 is one of the longer tracks-a marathon 3:38-it's almost got the normal structure.The song is raw and full of emotion from both vocals and guitar-I'd imagine this is a live favourite.

They certainly are an interesting group-you'll either love this or think it's a complete load of ???But with this c.d. The White Stripes have challenged our listening skills and our so-called musical conventions in a fresh and exciting way.Thank God for groups like this!

Despite the best efforts of such posers as Creed and Nickelback to kill rock, the genre is not dead quite yet, as the White Stripes prove here. "White Blood Cells" is sixteen tracks of underproduced, unpolished rock that actually sounds like it was recorded in a garage with a tape recorder. In today's radio climate, filled with overproduced studio clones, the White Stripes provide a contrast similar to what I imagine the Ramones provided twenty-five years ago (a little before my time). "Fell in Love with a Girl," the song that prompted me to check this album out, is 109 seconds of uncompromising, unrelenting rock in its purest form. Most of the songs on "White Blood Cells" aren't as fast or visceral as the first single, but there are enough different sounds here to satisfy pretty much everyone. "I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman" boasts a head-bobbin' groove, "Hotel Yorba" has a pleasant folky sound, and album closer "This Protector" even introduces a piano to the mix. Jack White's vocal wail is complemented well by his guitar, which alternates ear-pleasing acoustic strumming with fuzzy stoner-rock riffing. Sister Meg's drumming is certainly far from technical, but on an album where simplicity and authenticity matter more than precision, it fits in perfectly. "White Blood Cells" may go a long way toward brining rock back to its roots, much the way such legendary albums as "Ramones" and "Nevermind" did in their times.

What do the White Stripes, At The Drive-In, the Strokes, Love as Laughter, the Vines, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, BRMC, Andrew WK, and probably more bands you and I have never heard of, all have in common? Recently, various people stated that these artists were going to "save rock and roll". But look at rock and roll. It hasn't been saved. Creed didn't look at what they were doing and realize it had all been awful and meaningless. Lifehouse didn't give up and die. Nothing's changed.

How exactly do you save rock and roll, anyway? Do you make Creed and Linkin Park and their droves of fans change their mind about what rock should sound like? Do you inspire endless streams of other bands devoted to imitating your sound? If that's the case, Nirvana saved rock and roll by giving us Bush. No. Apparently you just have to make an album with some raw-throat screaming and loud guitars that reminds music critics of some of the great rock bands of the past. Sorry--bands like Television, Led Zeppelin, and especially the Velvet Underground were great because they were innovative, did things their own way and broke rules. Longing for the past and paying tribute to the sound of these bands isn't going to save rock (whatever that means).

However, that's not to say that this isn't an admirable thing to do. We shouldn't malign bands like the Strokes and the White Stripes just for wearing their influences on their sleeves--at least it'll help win the Velvet Underground some new fans. What we have to watch out for are the copy-of-a-copy Strokes clones that are sure to follow. Pray it won't happen. But back to the point: There's nothing wrong with being intentionally retro, especially when part of your sound is uniquely your own. And it sure helps if you can write songs as good as "Fell in Love with a Girl" or "The Union Forever".

Which brings us to the White Stripes' third album, their first to receive mainstream attention, White Blood Cells. How good is it? Well, like I said, it has a few fantastic songs. If they could have made an album of songs that were ALL as good as "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", "Hotel Yorba", and the two mentioned above, it would be a classic. 9 or 10/10. Undoubtedly. But reviewers get carried away. White Blood Cells is pretty good, but not perfect. There are unremarkable songs like "Expecting" and "Now Mary", and there's a noisy experimental track called "Aluminium", which might have been OK for a change of pace, at half the length; as it is, it's almost unlistenable. But don't let that stop you--the rest of the album is fine. The highs make up for the lows, and the good songs show enough promise to suggest there could be great things in store. The follow-up is due by the end of this year, apparently. Worth looking out for. Hey, maybe it'll even save rock.

PS. Source Tags and Codes, by the aforementioned And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, is a better and more ground-breaking album. But that's another review.

The White Stripes came from out of nowhere (although White Blood Cells was already their third album) to rise to the top of the Invasion of the Plural Nouns (The Hives, The Strokes, The Vines, etc.). Maybe it was their added adjective, or their simple color scheme, or their seemingly incestuous brother-sister/husband-wife relationship. After all, marketing has played a very important role in their success.

But none of that would matter if not for the music. White Blood Cells is simply a fine album of simple rock and roll. Jack White's guitar and vocals and Meg White's drums lay down a basic attractive foundation on which to massage rock cliches while remaining true to themselves. The White Stripes are one of the most "influenced" bands I've heard recently, and yet that does not detract from the enjoyment of the music.

I originally became interested as a fan of the film Citizen Kane. I heard that Jack had taken lines from the film and turned it into the song "The Union Forever." I had to hear it. In the process, I ended up listening to the whole CD over and over again. Its short length makes for such an easily repetitive experience.

I look forward to more great things from the duo that calls themselves the White Stripes, whatever their relationship with one another. As long as they keep making music this good, I'll live with whatever marketing scheme they think of next.