new york times' kelefeh sanneh on the white stripes, get behind me satan and retro-rock

The Killers' vision of 1980's new wave is more single-minded than anything that jumbled-up decade produced

I'm sorry, either he's not explaining himself too well or he's being a bit ridiculous, I don't know which.

This is worse than the Jayson Blair scandal.

I mean, come on already. NO SHIT DUDE.

I like the new single, but please ...

Please tell me an editor tacked that beauty on.

YOUR 11 FAVORITE MISSPELLINGS OF KELEFA SANNEH'S NAME, FUCK

You might think that retro-rock bands would water down the music they borrow from, but the opposite tends to be true: everything comes back more vivid

...which if anything sounds positive (but then again, is it?).

Sanneh is nowhere near as good at broadsheet populism as Petridish (which isn't saying much, I concede) and makes just as many factual errors. (Bloc Party Scottish? I sure hope someone got fired for that) Why is this site perpetually fascinated by such a mediocre writer?

I think we've just spotted the flaw here. ;-)

"snotty" maybe its because he's 1) not mediocre and 2) covering music that no one else is covering in the new york times in a comprehensive and intelligent way? Did you see how happy matt sonzala was with sanneh's houston rap scene piece?

Having less ideas than the people they rob from.

That was how I read it anyway.

Ignores rock that doesn't scan between a gap ad and the indie shop, more to life than what's on Pazz'n'jop, standard grumble grumble

x-post

I scanned this really quickly. Apologies. I'm not sure I agree with "You might think that retro-rock bands would water down the music they borrow from, but the opposite tends to be true: everything comes back more vivid." at all fwiw.

x-post there's a lot of bands don't make pazz'n'jop but play rock that depending on your sympathy, you may or may not consider retro. He's right to note the retro tendencies popular today (though it's pretty easy to make a case that every band synthesizes their influences) but if he's going to accuse 'rock' in general of it I'd wish he'd acknowledge more of rock.

and ok um, Bloc Party is even more devoted to jittery guitars and clipped bass lines than its post-punk forebears Gang of Four, who are currently packing in young fans on the alt-rock oldies circuit. Devotion?

I'm really sympathetic to his point that retro != unoriginal, but I wish he did a better job of pointing out what makes these groups unique rather than weirdly implying they're better.

this isn't even true. oh, i could go on and on... (well, maybe it was a mild shock to him, but i don't see how. he probably hears more music than i do. or maybe he missed the 10 years of brian wilson worship and blooze explosionisms. or even the 80's soundz that have been pumping for almost a decade now.)

Yeah, it's incredibly lazy. The fact that the Strokes are pegged as the revival point shows how effectively they were able to build their own myth *and* how rapidly it was fallen for. I'm not saying that the myth can't exist or doesn't have a purpose -- or even that it's not entertaining, it is. But stating something like this by rote -- I'm sorry, but I so don't buy it.

"Why is this site perpetually fascinated by such a mediocre writer?"

no idea. dont think hes terrible, i just have a hard time figuring out if he ever has anything he really wants to say, or if hes really saying anything that exciting at all. it all just seems desperately middlebrow, inoffensive, mild and MOR.

or "maybe its because he's 2) covering music that no one else is covering in the new york times in a comprehensive and intelligent way? Did you see how happy matt sonzala was with sanneh's houston rap scene piece?"

well scene-people/specialists usually love it when their scene or local artists or whatever get bigged up in a large newspaper, even if the coverage isnt that great or special. its like 'oh cool such and such big paper is covering it! thats coverage for the scene! thats great!' or theyre just so overcome that some bigwig is doing something on it, their pants get wet and they dont care about anything else (except drying their pants).

'My Doorbell' doesn't half sound like 'Let's Go Dancing (Ooh Reggae Dancing)' by Kool and the Gang.

If the Strokes are seen as being more in the garage rock vein (as opposed to the nu wave vein), then the trend dates back to the late seventies w/ bands like DMZ and such. There was the whole paisley underground thing concurrent w/ tons of garage rock revivalism in the '80s. Genre never really died, but started kicking again quite a bit in early '90s w/ Gories, Mummies, Cheater Slicks, Night Kings, Supercharger, etc.

I guess part of it is just having someone at someplace like the NYT who's at least listening to and aware of a broad range of music. I'm less hung up on his value as a stylist than as a sort of populist critic in the Roger Ebert mode who can make potentially obscure things seem accessible -- and who has pretty good taste, too.

i'd love to see some of this brit daily paper writing that's so much better than sanneh's times stuff (which is generally way, way better than this white stripes review by the way.) i'm not being sarcastic, though i guess i'm being skeptical. i never had any idea that the brit press had much to say about music at all in this day and age. i sure haven't seen it do so, but i'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

xp

xp

aren't the strokes supposed to sound like television and other 70's dudes? i actually never thought they were that retro to begin with.

gypsy mothra said it better.

Only a few years ago, it was a mild shock to hear so many young bands sounding so old-fashioned. In 2001, when the Strokes released their galvanizing debut album, the garage-rock boom seemed like a sharp (and sometimes shrill) reaction to a mutating musical world. The Strokes' retro juggernaut was a strike against turntables and keyboards, rap-rock and electronica. And if the band sounded a bit like their favorite late-1970's punk forebears, that was part of the point: they were digging in their heels.

I see little deflation here, or distinction of the difference between hype and reality.

KS in failure to reflect sum total of musical reality in half a sentence shocker!

The stuff I have problems with is about the White Stripes relationship to rock history. Forget about agreeing with it or not, I'm not even sure what it means.

Specifically, a Digitech Whammy pedal, for those that are interested. He's used one for years, especially to do odd, impossible things during slide solos.

I just realized that no-one probably does care. I CARE! somewhat.

fwiw, one thing I like about Kelefa in general is that I think he manages to write about things that, in most cases, the majority of his potential audience knows nothing about, but he manages to do it conversationally and make it seem accessible (as opposed to, say, some of the high-art critics, opera and painting and whatnot, who seem to kind of pride themselves on writing for specialized audiences).

It's a perfectly well-written piece, and i can't understand all the criticism (well wait, as this is ILM I can but all the hyper-analysis is still silly) - esp from whoever that said Kelefah doesnt have an opinion. He's practically salivating over the album, wth do you mean? I have yet to be disappointed by the way he explains things, and I dig his excited, yet still low-key style. I'd like to see any of you write better in The New York Times, which demands a particular tone and presumes a specific audience....and see if you succeed as well in such well-defined parameters.

So presumably Ned disagrees with KS' take on recent musical history. How would you sum up the last few years differently in two paragraphs? ie, without having the luxury of pointing out all the exceptions to the rule.

The downside of this is turning into Klosterman -- which, happily, KS doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger of doing (and thank fuck for that).

I also personally find it very amsuing that in the same breath people are saying, "Isn't it great that KS can talk to so many people" they are also saying, "Aren't *we* great for sensing what he's *really* talking about." The two are not necessarily contradictory, but you're making it sound like that the conscious-history-of-hype subtext which is magically apparent to many here is only allowed to be understood by those who know him, not the general audience he's supposed to be informing. Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

I don't know; maybe he genuinely thinks the White Stripes are this significant. I certainly don't.

well, jeez, i guess we better not talk about it then.

Of course we Brits despise celebrity as part of our make-up. 'Build 'em up, knock 'em down' is the national motto. Everyone of us has a tabloid hack within.

xp2- I have a Whammy pedal. I care.

haha, I was thinking that part of the problem here might be trying to make the White Stripes seem important. (I like the White Stripes a whole lot, fwiw, but I have a hard time seeing them as much more than a nice little band.)

I will take that challenge with KS's own words:

Only a few years ago, it was a mild shock not only to hear so many young bands sounding so old-fashioned, but that some started to succeed with it. The 2001 release of the Strokes' galvanizing debut album, combined with high profile attention for the band, further publicized a garage-rock boom that seemed like a sharp (and sometimes shrill) reaction to a mutating musical world. Like many other bands, the Strokes' retro juggernaut was a strike against turntables and keyboards, rap-rock and electronica. And if the band sounded a bit like their favorite late-1970's punk forebears, that was part of the point: they were digging in their heels.

Of all the bands that gained wider attention then, none dug in harder than the White Stripes, the Detroit duo that staked out a position on the extreme wing of retro.

Rewrote the first three sentences to provide a bit of context without adding too much. Left the fourth sentence as is, tweaked the first sentence of the next paragraph to make it seem less like the White Stripes came out in the *wake* of the Strokes, which 'emerged' doesn't entirely make clear.

If one is going for the big picture in the first place, I tend to think one should do it full bore.

Anyway, now I'm nit-picking the nit-pickers. Later

How adding the phrases

"but that some started to succeed with it"
"combined with high profile attention for the band, further publicized"
"Like many other bands"

adds any context is honestly beyond me.

"Unable to escape rock 'n' roll history, the White Stripes decided to rearrange it instead" is the most vomit-inducing line I've read in a long, long time.

This ain't his best piece, sure. It makes some dubious claims, OK. But writing for a general audience really is different than writing for a niche audience, and I don't see why that should be a controversial point.

"but that some started to succeed with it"
"combined with high profile attention for the band, further publicized"
"Like many other bands"

adds any context is honestly beyond me.

-- bugged out (bu...), June 4th, 2005."

"Like many other bands" is the most important addition, and gets to the root of the problem with the article, IMHO.

"From Gap commercials (where you can find the 18-year-old Joss Stone belting out the half-century-old "Night Time Is the Right Time") to indie record shops, rock 'n' roll nostalgia is everywhere."

This reminds me of something you'd read in "Teen Beat", or the hamfisted "Beatlemania" articles of yesteryear..."Those lovable mop-tops the Strokes are sweeping the nation with their smart suits and devil-may-care attitude!"

don weiner OTM on "Unable to escape..." line. Reminds me of the ham-fisted first drafts of Philosophy 1001 thesis statements I used to have to deal with back when I was a peer writing advisor. "Now the White Stripes are trying something trickier: they're trying to change the past." reminds me of the conclusions that would inevitably follow. Lazy, deadline filling writing from someone with nothing to say...

JSBX and about a zillion other post-punk acts have dug deep into some sort of strict aesthetic before Jack White got the idea

He's not just saying the White Stripes dug into a strict aesthetic in general. He's saying it was an aesthetic that was strict about mimicking the past.

This is the same storyline given to Wilco or Radiohead when they were busy reinventing rock-n-roll in cleverer and strange ways.

No it isn't. Everyone hailed Wilco and Radiohead for their futurism. Precisely the opposite.

x-post:
"This is the same storyline given to Wilco or Radiohead when they were busy reinventing rock-n-roll in cleverer and strange ways.

No it isn't. Everyone hailed Wilco and Radiohead for their futurism. Precisely the opposite.

-- bugged out (bu...)"

Please explain this refutation more clearly...particularly use of "everyone", the application of futurism to Wilco, and the reason "futurism" and "reinventing (X) in cleverer and strange ways" are opposing viewpoints, rather than differing interpretations.

Granted. Like I said, I don't think this is that bad -- it makes me want to hear the record, which is sort of its main objective -- but yeah, true.

Everyone=majority of media outlets.

futurism/Wilco=everyone going on about the computers on that last album but one, which was the one they got all the hype for.

the opposing viewpoints are futurism, which Wilco and Radiohead were hailed for, and retroism, which the Strokes and White Stripes were hailed for

OK, prof?

Because of these statements:

"Of all the bands that emerged then, none dug in harder than the White Stripes"

"they were rock 'n' roll's greatest primitivists"

rilly good thinkpieces are rare and few between and usually absolutely don't fit the requirements for any major non-music publication.

the odd thing is that i have a hard time reading stuff like this coz i just gloss over it too quick, as compared to more "specialized" stuff.

i've noticed this more generally too -- like popular histories are tougher going for me than the denser but more specific academic stuff, etc.

it's like i don't notice simple claims anymore unless the writing is all about "showing" that backs them up. otherwise i just sorta filter thru them. & also ideas about say, the "state" of retro-rock or etc. just go through the same mental band-filter coz i don't think it's worth having an opinion, almost?

I understand you disagree with Sanneh's evaluation of the White Stripes. He, however, at least argues why he likes them so much. You however, just keep saying that you don't think they're very good, and he's wrong about them. And without any argument as to why you hold your opinion, I could really care less about it.

He could have just said what I think of this record, which is that it's a psychedelic time-shifting masterpiece!! A much more focused way of encapsulating the past/future thing. Reminds me of a mushroom trip I had in college -- wondering what lay ahead in academia's wake while longing to be 8 years old watching Yaz's last game for the Sox with my Dad; the memory was crystal clear and poignant, even while I was also freaking out about the present. If you just report on the record and not play harvard boy, the evidence is there that Jack is experiencing something similar; the choice of arrangement tells me that.

The reasons why I don't think the WS are very good (from what I've heard, anyway - and I do like the new single) are that I don't think the songwriting seems all that great, the singing doesn't seem all that great (and is actually annoying at times) and I don't know about the personality being projected. I could mention tons of garage bands I like more - those ones I mentioned from the early '90s way upthread were all greater, I think.

I am inherently suspicious of them though.

How about a pair of pink sidewinders
And a bright orange pair of pants?
"You could really be a Beau Brummel baby
If you just give it half a chance.
Don't waste your money on a new set of speakers,
You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers."
Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It's still rock and roll to me

What's the matter with the crowd I'm seeing?
"Don't you know that they're out of touch?"
Should I try to be a straight `A' student?
"If you are then you think too much.
Don't you know about the new fashion honey?
All you need are looks and a whole lotta money."
It's the next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It's still rock and roll to me

Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound
Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

no. neo soul gets it too, hip hop artists like edan and ugly ducking get it too, even annie and richard x get it.

"What about funk revivalism within hip-hop"

if hip hop was a genre flooded with bands playing retro-styled funk then you might have a point, but er, they sampled funk and made it into a new genre called hip hop or rap music, so its not quite the same thing.

but you get groups like sharon jones, breakestra and the ilk on the modern funk scene who are just like the funk versions of all those detroit bands playing garage rock and bar room blues like its 1970 all over again.

"or the huge debt that the supposedly groundbreaking dance music of the '90s owes to the electronic music of the '70s and '80s?"

not the same. how on earth do goldie, aphex twin, matmos, or junior boys or any of those guys sound like kraftwerk, eno or whoever? thats just lazy. theyre all electronic, but matmos doesnt sound like kraftwerk or whoever does he? this is like people who say kid a wasnt doing anything new cos eno already did low, but they sound nothing alike.

-- Tim Ellison (timelliso...) (webmail), June 4th, 2005 2:15 AM. (Tim Ellison) (later) (link)

The videos?

You think journalists at many other, hundreds of other, dailies in the US of A don't listen to or are aware of a broad range of music?
Well they do and they did for a long time. And some are ignoramuses but you can't come close to painting them all with a statistical mean or a broad stroke.

They often just don't have the luxury of blowing a page of musings the size of a NYT piece on their opinions and derivations of pop musical field equations. Even when they do get half that volume by lucky chance, it doesn't hit the wire, if it does at all, with the same agency name oomph.

Look, this thread, like all the threads on Sanneh, or other pieces cited from the Times "pop music" which always hits around page 25 on Sunday recently on ILM, are a product of the lickspittle brigade. The White Stripes are hardly the only band that reinvests and reinvents "retro." They're only the one of literally a hundred, at least, I bet, under the microscope of a big daily newspaper.

I get a record or two a month from nobodies, old and young, who are doing the same thing, often better, sometimes equal, frequently worse but without the infrastructure resource to lift the art higher.

What makes you tyros and boneheads so cocksure that a byline in the New York Times and the wherewithal to do 40 or more column inches after massage by a layered team of editors confers excellence?

People with Pulitzers under their belts and appearances regularly on the front page of this paper in hard news analysis have been publicly thrown down as rubbish in the last couple years. You think features writing is immune?

I enjoy reading Sanneh. He frequently appears to be either winging it or from a different planet with regards to things I know something about, like many Times writers, but always eloquent, like all Times writers who go through the editorial process. This piece, published last Sunday, wasn't one of the stronger things. But by pure weight of paper its printed on, a valid measurement if you're into finding the volume under the curve through physical calculus, it bowls over anything done by newspaper writers at any other paper in the country on the same day.

As for K.'s writing, all newspapers are middle-brow, and as such the piece doesn't deviate far from the norm. Except, of course, per the above: trying to intellectualize a band that just doesn't support the ol' firing of the synapses.

(I'd take it all back if the above image were the actual album cover.)

I'm sorry this is bullshit. Sonzala (#1) was furious at how houston was covered by MTV and (#2) is not an idiot.

hahahaha! i heart keith harris. he's been writing such great stuff for da voice.

"Well, shit—who wouldn't marry Kenny Chesney instead? A laid-back little fella, he'll wash if you dry, sniffle proudly at your daughter's graduation, whisk you off to Tim and Faith's beach house for the weekend. Sure, one Amstel Light too many can instigate a 4 a.m. Billy Joel sing-along with his Lambda Chi bros, but at least he won't sulk Saturday night away in the attic alphabetizing Blind Blake wax cylinders by gas lamp. And any juniorette Joan Rivers who refuses to condone a Stetson at the altar should check Jack White's latest promo glossies. You'd prefer your groom decked out like a Hasidic Johnny Depp piloting the TARDIS to 19th-century Spain?"

I guess I don't have a problem about what he's saying about the new album, but the pretext and historical perspective is pretty wacked.

Not at all! I do it too. It's no more absurd than any number of other ways of spending time. The absurdity is part of what I enjoy.

I was thinking more of certain scenes that tried to slavishly imitiate acid house or detroit techno. Or west coast '90s rap songs that used Parliament loops. Sure, it's incredibly lazy to call that stuff retro which was my whole point. It's equally lazy to dismiss the Strokes or White Stripes as being retro. The term retro is mildly descriptive at best but it doesn't work as a criticism.

For example, I think Lenny Kravitz sucks but not simply because he's retro. It would be hypocritical of my to criticize him in those terms since I love for example Stereolab who is even more ridiculously retro.

As a criticism, the term retro is just a lazy shorthand that stands in for the old biases for originality and authenticity. It's a way to criticize music you don't like by implying that it's not doing anything innovative or that the artists and fans are merely playing with a nostalgiac pose. But my point is that these standards are not applied consistently. Another artist with an equally retrograde sensibility will be given a pass if the critic likes his music.

Adding rapping to p-funk tracks (as well as turning them into, you know, three minute pop songs) is a huge difference. Obviously its all relative but I think its entirely reasonable to use the words "retro" in some situations.

I dont think he uses "retro" as a pejorative at all! You're reading a lot more into what he's saying than he actually wrote.

(I dont think its ks's best article by far - he's much more at home with hip-hop, pop, etc....i didnt like his slint piece much either - but I think he made some good points, even if he also made some rather broad generalizations)

i mean, the search for antecedents is one of the favorite forms of critical one-upmanship but it could go on forever and in this case i think sort of misses the point.

Re Amateurist's point: perhaps the article is understandably focused on the US, but if we're talking about bands/movements with "nationwide, not-just-college-radio-type exposure" based around "selfconscious retro-ism" then surely the model for this is Britpop??

But yeah, The Strokes are part of a different "movement"...

well, all of the bands I listed above had nationwide, not-jus-college-radio type exposure, actually. and i'm still not sure anybody has explained what the strokes are retro *to* -- they don't sound like a '60s garage band, they don't sound like the velvet underground, they don't sound like television, they don't sound like the cars; basically, the one band they really sound like is, um, the strokes. and yes, they do *draw* on those influences, but not more than, say, black crowes/urge overkill/local h/everclear/weezer/buck cherry/oasis/etc drew on allman brothers/bad company/elvis costello/cars/ac-dc/t. rex/beatles/etc. which is to say, if the strokes are "retro," i still really don't understand how those (quite popular) '90s bands were *not* retro. unless you're just talking clothes and haircuts (though, as i recall, urge overkill and the dandy warhols kinda dressed in period garb, and so did the black crowes, though obviously the perioid was different). strokes do what rock bands pretty much *always* do -- they recombine influences that have already existed. (which is also what hip-hop acts sampling old funk records under '70s-style soul vocals and daft punk mimicking eurodisco and kenny chesney shuffling mellencamp/petty/buffet and the killers mixing up duran/gang of four/"queen bittch" etc. do, obviously. i'm not sure i see a difference - they're all retro, or they're all not.) and though i really don't want to dissect kelefah''s piece--it' really doesn't bother me all that much, and he can be a great writer in ways unheard of among daily paper critics--i do think his main point here is to put forward the idea that white stripes suddenly came up with this idea that you can recombine different parts of old sounds into a new sound. and my quesion is: who *doesn''t* do that? so yeah, as he says. maybe it IS time to retire the term 'retro-rock'" (assuming anybody actually uses that term in the first place -- isn't it sort of a straw man? though maybe i just talk to and read different people than k does). but it''s not time to retire it because of the new white stripes LP (which, as somebody above said, sounds good, and pretty much the same as their other albums, on which they recombined old influences as well; i'm glad kelefah loves it, but they never sounded particularly purist to me) it's time to retire the phrase because it really never meant all that much in the first place!

xp

xp

not sure i agree with this (there are *lots* of models for this kinda {bowel} movement), but i think it's an interesting thought, since didn't the strokes actually hit first (and perhaps bigger) in england? they definitely seemed to be on tour there a lot, when they just had EPs out. (in fact, i think their first EP may have showed up on american shores as a UK import.) and the same thing has happened with some american post-strokes new-new-wave hypes since -- definitely the bravery and the scissors sisters (if they count); not sure who else.(do interpol have brit hits? in the states, near as i can tell, they've never gotten much beyond college radio, though anthony can check the charts and correct me i'm wrong.) so maybe the reason i don' t notice the movement as much as some other people here is that i don't read the british music papers, who may well have invented the movement in the first place...

The LA Sunday Times today turned the subject of this thread into a grease spot with a story so big, the pictures alone take up more space than the column inches of Sanneh. The photos, of which there are four of Jack and Meg White, are all bigger than your head! Get the print version, cut them out and use them as masks!

Robert Hilburn travelled to Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, strike that, Detroit, MI, to interview Jack and a silent Meg White.

Excerpts, you'll swoon:

..."Get Behind Me Floyd" is a daring creative advance..."

"The White Stripes' Jack White is ready for a break as he slips behind the wheel of his vintage four-seat..."

"A new sound of independence..." (in 50-point pika, or whatever the designation is for lettering that's really big)

"The fifth album proves they've earned their stripes..."

"...the recording sessions left even the normally workaholic White drained..."

"Everything about Jack White's car, from the upholstery to the tinny radio -- is original - except for the supercharged engine features that make the car roar loud as a jet..."

"White makes his way back to the living room and sits in a chair by a picture of Rita Hayworth..."

"She was a metaphor for everything I could think of...the red hair, the innocence, the fact that she lost her memory to Alzheimer's..."

"I hate the celebrity stuff," [said White]. It trivializes everything..."

"Meg's so shy it's probably a relief Jack does all the talking..."

"Whatever his musical path, White is unlikely to temper his musical vision..."

http://www.latimes.com -- ya can't miss it. Subscription site, use
Bugmenot.

I'll give 'em a pass on the car though: could be a Detroit thing (search, Woodward Dream Cruise)

http://www.woodwarddreamcruise.com/Photos.html

I suspect that from a UK Press perspective, The Strokes weren't really a reaction against non-rock (though there were still a lot of "Rock is back!" taglines) so much as a reaction to not-so-rock rock that had had a lot of currency at that point in time - on the one hand US pansy-psych-pop like latter-day The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, and on the other hand the mournful MoR of Coldplay and Travis. The battlefield as such is more intra-rock (and only a small part of it) than rock vs [x].