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

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.