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The White Stripes :: "Icky Thump"From Icky Thump (Warner Brothers/WEA; 2007)
Ten years into their career, the White Stripes are back with album number six this summer, and if the title, cover art, and first single are to be believed, it looks to be their strangest to date. Which is saying something, considering that increasing strangeness seems to be something of a strategy for Jack and Meg: the bigger they've gotten, the progressively weirder Jack has demanded to be. After the critically acclaimed White Stripes and the massive radio play of "Seven Nation Army" off Elephant (2003), the Stripes learned how to play marimba and made their oddest, and arguably best, album yet with Get Behind Me Satan (2005). Now comes Icky Thump, and it looks to be very much in the same vein.
The title track is all squealing guitars, low feedback, typical plodding drums courtesy of Meg, and Jack screeching his way through four minutes of rock 'n roll. It's a bizarre single; angry verses interspersed with keyboard runs and guitar jams, squalling high notes, and no real sense of how or why this all came together. Jack is screaming something about white America and redheads, but mostly it just sounds like there may have been some serious trauma when he "hit his head on the radio." I'm still not sure this is one of the Stripes' best singles, but you've sort of got to respect the band (no matter how begrudgingly) for refusing to just dish up the easy stuff. Get Behind Me Satan sold a ridiculous number of copies (quarter of a million in its first two weeks alone), and I would think Jack and Meg could safely rest on their laurels (and sacks of cash) for this one. Instead, they seem intent on throwing increasingly large wrenches into the gears.
Peter Hepburn :: 8 May 2007 |
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