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Review [published March 2003]
The White Stripes: Elephant
Peter Wild
Ryan Adams has already said that Elephant is the
greatest rock’n’roll album ever recorded (laying to rest,
once and for all, his spat with ‘cissy boy’ Jack White).
Jack White himself – well, Jack White thinks this is
where The White Stripes get off. Nobody is going to
buy Elephant. Or rather: the hordes that bought White
Blood Cells – Jack White thinks they’ll stay home this
time. Or so he says.
Elephant kickstarts with a pristine bass sound. ‘7
Nation Army’. The first single to be. Whatever you say,
however you approach this, you don’t expect bass. The
White Stripes are guitars and drums. Guitars and drums
and occasional piano. They make a primal noise. That
is what they do. The bass is just foolin’, though (it’s
not bass at all – it’s just an effect – it’s just gee-tar).
Jack White is here with a voice fizzing like magnesium
in water: “Everybody knows about it from the Queen
of England to the hounds of hell”. Oh yeah. This is
rock’n’roll, pure and simple, all you need to know.
When that boy White sings “I’m going to Wichita…”
you sure as shit want to be on the same train … He
whistles and he whines and he roars and he spits – he is
BUY White Stripes music online from and
everything Black Francis was back in the day.
Next up is ‘Black Math’ – you follow the Pixies’
thinking and ‘Black Math’ is Elephant’s ‘Tame’. Fierce
fierce rock with a screaming vocal about mothers and
breaking backs against all-out reverb and noise. Plus
you get Jack saying “ah-ah-ah-ah-ha” (the first of many
such sounds drawn from a huge pantheon of rock’n’roll
staples that look stupid written down and cool as all-
Hell when sung – later you get “ow a-ha ow ow ow”
in ‘Little Acorns’, “do-do-dodoobiedo” in ‘Air Near
My Fingers’ and “Whoo!” – a great barbaric yawp of
primordial garage “Whoo!” – in ‘Girl You Have No
Faith In Medicine’ – all stupid written down, all cooler
than Clint when sung by your man Jack White).
A nod to another Queen (Freddie Mercury) comes
next – multipart vocals cluster about the cruellest chorus
(“There’s no home for you here, girl, go away…”)
while – and I shit you not – guitars and theremins all but
haemorrhage. There is relief (albeit short-lived relief)
in the familiar lilt of a cover – Bacharach and David’s ‘I
Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself.’ This isn’t
Pop Idol though, and Jack White is no Gareth. When
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