defend the indefensible: jack white

he was awful cute back in the day.

ew

always got an inbred vibe

one of the first things he did after the white stripes was "another way to die" with alicia keys which i think tells the entire story

as soon as the white stripes dissolved his songwriting got aimless probably bc it wasn't shadowed by the parentheses of a concept

totally agree, tho there are some good songs on the first dead weather and solo albums (still love "Missing Pieces")

C'mon, if he was disappeared after White Blood Cells he'd be a revered cult figure by now. Remember how defensible Weezer was after they made Pinkerton then basically went off the grid?

If the new definition of "indefensible" is "got progressively worse from their creative peak until they were insufferable", then it seems like that kinda opens the floodgates: pixies, morrissey, smashing pumpkins, and just about everyone else who didn't bow out at the right time.

w/r/t Pixies I sorta feel like any band that reforms 10+ years after splitting—even w/ the same personnel—isn't really the same band.

IMO Trompe Le Monde is brilliant, they quit at exactly the right moment.

Jack White is the worst kind of pseud. Headfaking asceticism but 100% bloat, White Stripes included.

Simon and brad otm.

I remember hearing Icky Thump at a high school party and nobody flinched during the bagpipe track. The stripes like the Beatles and radiohead seemed to get away with anything, their fans drank the kool aid hard

I remember watching them play "We Are Going to Be Friends" on one of Conan's last Late Night shows in early 2009. must've been one of their last live performances right?

I agree Get Behind Me Satan is their best, and I've used that phrase about the WS catalog in general.

that said I was glad when the Von Bondies secured that TV theme song money and were able to comfortably retire somewhere

i tried to see the White Stripes once. they were playing at Stone Mountain Park in 2003. as soon as we got on the highway we knew we were fucked. it was a crawling parking lot and we missed the show entirely.

i really like Elephant and loved Get Behind Me Satan. Icky was cool too. saw the "Great Northern Lights" documentary in a theater when it came out. always thought Meg got a bad wrap.

oh totally re: meg. encountered so much lazy sexism among my friends when the WS were super popular - "oh she's so horrible, she can't drum at all dude" - as if it weren't a stylistic/aesthetic choice. she was fantastic in that band.

Meg rules, people are dumb

He gave a friend of mine SFX work on a Dead Weather video. Can't hate.

i wish i looked like a vampire and could sing well and make weird albums so i admire him

he really nailed a one-man Led Zeppelin, riff like Page, singing like Plant. imo they should all make a record together.

he did neither of these things, come on

I tend to agree with Adam cuz I knew many older people who liked the stripes for their similarity to zeppelin (obviously nowhere near as good )

I loved Blunderbuss. The new album is sooooo disappointing.

I would love to know his yearly earnings from Seven Nation Army.

I like him about as much as I like the Smashing Pumpkins. One or two songs, hate the conceptual stuff, don't like him as a singer or guitarist. Don't even like that Loretta Lynn album. I guess I like him most in that Electric Six cameo.

i've seen a trusted source describe the new record as sci-fi jazz/funk, which sounds kind of intriguing tbh

I would love to know his yearly earnings from Seven Nation Army.

No kidding - it's such a huge "Jock Jams" / soccer stadium riff! (and I assume those uses are licensed)

He's making massive royalty earnings because it's played globally at sports events.

having listened to the new albums a few times through now, I can easily say it's my favorite post White Stripes.
It sounds great loud on a good stereo, which seems weird to say about a Jack White production. I find about 75% of
the music pretty exciting. It plays much more like an album than a collection of songs.

If this was some kind of sloppy purge with the past, and messy rebirth into a new Pro Tools phase, then I'm optimistic.
I can see a fuzzed out Uriah Heep doing "Sign O The Times" coming down the line.

I admire the new album, but ultimately things seem like genre exercises. A lot of grooveless grooves and unfunky funk. There are occasional moments of "wow that's cool" but they are few. I admire him for going this direction though.

I still think Elephant is a great record - one of my favourite albums to come out of that ilk in the '00s.

this dude sucks

I still think Elephant is a great record - one of my favourite albums to come out of that ilk in the '00s.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 4:07 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, along with Is This It it's definitely the best album by any of the 'The' bands

In defense of Jack White I once had a good friend. Her questionable guitar boyfriend and I went to see the White Stripes on the De Stijl tour. Was a good show. Afterward we talked outside and agreed it was good. The boyfriend asked if I saw Jack White's dick. I said what, and he said I was pretending not to have noticed Jack White's dick and it was huge. I actually have no idea even now about the size of Jack White's dick.

I found some evidence to bolster your questionable friend's claims. Brace yourself:

http://elvisqueso-iii.tumblr.com/post/74843085223/jack-white-best-bulge-in-rock

well hello. you might even say solid evidence.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8299798/jack-white-nicki-minaj-hip-hop-is-the-new-punk-rock

Funny that he seems mainly interested in the "extreme lyrical content" (at least in the quote excerpted in the article):

But Minaj, and her track "Only," in particular, set a new standard for him and what he's hoping to achieve in his work.

"I mean, some of those lyrics are like, ‘Holy shit!'" he told Clash. "I, as an adult, listening to that by myself, am shocked at some of the words that I’m hearing. But it’s brilliant! It’s brilliant to be able to say that, to be able to say whatever you want. I couldn’t get away with saying half of those things that Nicki Minaj says in that song. It’s just brilliant to see how far things have gone in that sense, and how cool it is for people to talk about these moments and say, 'Wow, check this out.'"

Now I'm picturing JW sitting in a tastefully appointed den, listening to "The Pinkprint," and wondering if he could "get away with" singing eat my a$$ like a cupcake...

i heard a song off this on the radio that sounded like ween doing a joke rage against the machine song

Whoa Jack White thinks hip-hop is the new punk rock! What trenchant insight...in 1980

"Hip-hop is like...its the CNN of the streets" Jack White, today probably.

Jack White is like one yr older than I am, how is he just now realizing this?

I agree but at the same time (in his "defense"), I bet some of his rock-d00d fans are like, "Hip-hop sucks, real music uses real instruments," etc. So maybe he's putting something useful into the world with these dorky-sounding musings.

Also, the pic at the top of that Billboard link made me straight LOL for like 20 secs. straight.

He looks like he's starring in a biopic about Johnny Depp

#teddyperkins

Nicki's eyes are like, "!!!?"

...having just listened to the initial track posted by Seward....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGlN6mluGA

He has an attachment to the number three,[40][146] stemming from seeing three staples in the back of a Vladimir Kagan couch he helped to upholster as an apprentice.[54] His business ventures frequently feature "three" in the title and he typically appends "III" to the end of his name.[31] During the White Stripes 2005 tour in the UK, White began referring to himself as "Three Quid"—"quid" being British slang for pound sterling.[147]

I loved the stripes, seeing them in 2004 was all time classic, still great few times after but I hated doorbell and the icky thump single. Not heard this recent solo album but the other two are lyrically interesting but hes become way too maximalist, he repeats several obv musical themes, and I feel like hes really trying a bit too hard now to show hes open minded and up to date, not closed off to hip hop or other post-blues/rnr black genres (or for that matter, violins and brass, grrr) and I guess he knows rap has the popular edge but sometimes it looks a bit false, or like he is biting his tongue, like in that nikki interview. Though I did lol to see that he had included rakims dont sweat the technique in a live session. Also his production or just the sound of his first two solo records was kinda flat and boring.

Blunderbuss and lazaretto IIRC were incredibly samey too, as if they were a delayed double album.

yeah it's sad he's not more publicly racist

Um ok.