By KELEFA SANNEH Published: May 29, 2005MAYBE it's time to retire the term "retro-rock." Not because it doesn't fit but because it fits too much too well - it's becoming redundant. These days, rock tends to be retro by default, whether on the pop charts or on MP3 blogs. The million-selling Las Vegas band the Killers became a mainstream sensation by reviving the sound of 1980's new wave, while the beloved Scottish cult band Bloc Party became an underground sensation by . . . well, by reviving a different strand of 1980's new wave. 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. A young listener might well wonder what other kind of rock 'n' roll there is, and an older one might find that a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
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.
Of all the bands that emerged then, none dug in harder than the White Stripes, the Detroit duo that staked out a position on the extreme wing of retro. The guitarist Jack White and the drummer Meg White were rock 'n' roll refuseniks, determined to follow their own rigorous rules: no bass guitar, no clothes that weren't either red or white, no acknowledgment that they weren't really brother and sister. (As fans quickly discovered, they are a divorced couple.) Once the frantic garage-punk song "Fell in Love With a Girl" became a breakthrough hit, the White Stripes' image was set: they were rock 'n' roll's greatest primitivists, beloved (even, perhaps, by people who couldn't quite bring themselves to love the music) for their devotion to all things raw.
In 2003, the White Stripes left behind the Strokes and just about everyone else when they released "Elephant," a hit CD that even (or only) a Luddite could love. The liner notes promised that, "no computers were used during the writing, recording, mixing or mastering of this record." The album turned this boast into 50 minutes of shivering and yowling and stomping and wailing. As retro-rock reached its saturation point, with the garage-punk caricaturists Jet creeping past one million records sold, the White Stripes emerged as king and queen of rock 'n' roll nostalgia.
Or did they? On June 7, the White Stripes return with a thrilling new album, "Get Behind Me Satan" (Third Man/V2/BMG), that goes a long way toward dismantling the band's goofy mythology. It's an album so strong and so unexpected that it may change the way people hear all its predecessors. And that's just a start. Listen long enough, and this album might change the way you hear lots of other bands, too.
It was clear something strange was afoot when the White Stripes released "Blue Orchid," the album's first single, with a guitar so heavily processed that it almost sounds like a keyboard; it's as if the duo has made peace with its former enemy, the computer. (As is often the case, Meg White's steady drum beat and Jack White's yelped vocals are almost afterthoughts.) This band has always been committed to the sound and feel of vinyl records - the new album, like its predecessor, was made available to reviewers only as a two-LP set - and yet "Blue Orchid" was released straight to iTunes, two weeks after the band recorded it. A band that once wanted to move back in time now seemed eager to hurtle forward.
"Blue Orchid" is the first song on the new album, and it's followed by another surprise: "The Nurse," which begins with a marimba flourish that might once have sounded out of place within the spartan confines of a White Stripes album. His guitar and her drums make occasional, ear-splitting interventions, but the marimba and piano carry the song, while Jack White delivers quietly queasy lyrics about destructive devotion and murderous maids. "No I'm never, no I'm never, no I'm never gonna let you down, now," he sings, turning a murder mystery into a love story. There have been lots of albums about the transformative power of love, but few have been so suspicious of it as this one.
You can hear that suspicion lurking in the background of "Take, Take, Take," about an eager young man who bumps into Rita Hayworth, the movie star who died when Jack White was 11: "She walked into the bar with her long, red curly hair, and that was all that I needed," he announces, sounding every bit the gleeful young fan. He asks for an autograph and she goes one better, kissing a white piece of paper (even in this song, just about everything is red and white) and adding the coy inscription, "My heart is in my mouth."
But when she graciously excuses herself, the sweet encounter gets sour. The narrator gets indignant, yelping, "Well it's just not fair/I wanna get a piece of hair." And soon he's overtaken by self-pity: "She didn't even care that I was even there/What a horrible feeling." For the chorus, the music shifts sharply to an angular piano riff (in 11/4 time), and Jack White spits out the words, tugging petulantly against the rhythm: "Take, take, take/Take, take, take." This is the greedy mantra of a fan - or, if you like, of a nostalgic.
It's hard to hear the song without being reminded of Jack White's recent encounter with another heroine from an earlier era - although unlike his narrator, he got much more than an autograph. Last year, he teamed up with the transcendent country singer Loretta Lynn to release "Van Lear Rose" (Interscope), a country album that was by turns gorgeous and irritating. On the single "Portland, Oregon," his jagged guitar and half-hoarse vocal harmonies seemed to spur Ms. Lynn to giddy new heights - she sounded as if she were joy-riding in someone else's fast car. Elsewhere, though, Jack White's eager fandom seemed to overwhelm the graceful music, threatening to turn a complicated pop star into a backwoods caricature. When she reminisced about being poor and shoeless, you got the off-putting feeling that she was merely giving her young fan what he wanted. His heart was in her mouth.
Then again, doesn't nostalgia always work that way? Isn't it impossible to love a singer or a song or a style without changing it, sharpening the features to match your own preconceptions? 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. The Killers' vision of 1980's new wave is more single-minded than anything that jumbled-up decade produced, just as 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.
Cleverer and stranger than most of their contemporaries, Jack and Meg White are learning how to revel in nostalgia's mutations. "Get Behind Me Satan" is full of collisions and cracks, crashes and cutouts. The swaggering piano-rock song "My Doorbell" (with Jack White hollering, "I been thinkin' about the doorbell/When you gon' ring it, when you gon' ring it?") butts up against the plaintive power ballad "Forever for Her (Is Over for Me)," and the fluttering marimba only increases the garishness - this band is painstakingly recreating old genres as they never were.
The fact is that the White Stripes have never really been the rock 'n' roll preservationists they were often mistaken for. A critic writing in this newspaper (and, come to think of it, writing under this byline) once derided Jack White's "Led Zeppelin shriek," but this new album makes it easier to understand why a band would want to flaunt its influences so obviously. Unable to escape rock 'n' roll history, the White Stripes decided to rearrange it instead.
"Get Behind Me Satan" ends with yet another chapter in the continuing ballad of Meg and Jack. Over nothing but a few piano chords, Jack White sings a country ballad called, "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)," hinting at incest ("I love my sister, Lord knows how I've missed her"), but then stopping himself; the album's last words are, "Sometimes I get jealous of her little pets/I get lonely, but I ain't that lonely yet." On this album, where loving something means changing it, there's nothing more romantic than a demurral: if you want the woman you love to stay the same, you have to leave her alone.
But we can't help but hear the song differently: this is an album filled with characters (mainly men) who "take, take, take," so Jack White's vow sounds more like the sad promise of an incorrigible man trying (in vain) to convince himself that he never would, or that he never has. Lots of bands aim to change the future of rock 'n' roll; this one already has. Now the White Stripes are trying something trickier: they're trying to change the past.
― ppp, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― ppp, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link
This is worse than the Jayson Blair scandal.
I mean, come on already. NO SHIT DUDE.
― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― strng hlkngtn, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― yawner, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:46 (eighteen years ago) link
I like the new single, but please ...
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― ppp, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Please tell me an editor tacked that beauty on.
― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― yawner, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link
YOUR 11 FAVORITE MISSPELLINGS OF KELEFA SANNEH'S NAME, FUCK
― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― studiowiz, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― studiowiz, Friday, 3 June 2005 20:57 (eighteen years ago) link
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?).
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― noizem duke (noize duke), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link
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?
― snotty moore, Friday, 3 June 2005 21:22 (eighteen years ago) link
I think we've just spotted the flaw here. ;-)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link
"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?
― deej., Friday, 3 June 2005 21:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Having less ideas than the people they rob from.
That was how I read it anyway.
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:26 (eighteen years ago) link
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
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej., Friday, 3 June 2005 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― fandango (fandango), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:35 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:35 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link
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.)
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:58 (eighteen years ago) link
"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).
― studiowiz, Friday, 3 June 2005 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Friday, 3 June 2005 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link
'My Doorbell' doesn't half sound like 'Let's Go Dancing (Ooh Reggae Dancing)' by Kool and the Gang.
― snotty moore, Friday, 3 June 2005 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 3 June 2005 23:13 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 3 June 2005 23:20 (eighteen years ago) link
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
― xhuxk, Friday, 3 June 2005 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 3 June 2005 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Friday, 3 June 2005 23:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 3 June 2005 23:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Friday, 3 June 2005 23:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 4 June 2005 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
hahahaha! i heart keith harris. he's been writing such great stuff for da voice.
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 4 June 2005 15:07 (eighteen years ago) link
"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?"
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 4 June 2005 15:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 4 June 2005 15:57 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Saturday, 4 June 2005 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:46 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 4 June 2005 18:05 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link
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)
― deej., Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:40 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:14 (eighteen years ago) link
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"...
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:37 (eighteen years ago) link
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!
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link
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...
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cool Hand Luuke (ex machina), Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
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, useBugmenot.
― Harry Klam, Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:15 (eighteen years ago) link
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
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Harry Klam, Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link
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].
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 June 2005 21:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 June 2005 21:29 (eighteen years ago) link