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The White Stripes third release is reviewed.
The White Stripes’ third LP White Blood Cells (Sympathy For the Record Industry) consolidates their preeminence as a band that shakes your ass. Happily free of any pretense of self-pity or melancholy, the White Stripes write nasty songs, blistering numbers, bizarre little ditties, and postmodern country melodrama. This album is a far more crisply produced affair than the two before it. The basic formula remains intact: Meg White plays drums, Jack White sings and plays guitar, the album is largely red and white, and the songs are propulsive and punchy, bluesy throughout and country inflected in places.

The White Stripes sometimes sound like compressed Led Zeppelin, stripped down and partly screeched. Most of the time I think they sound like the Stones of the mid- and late-60s, fusing influences from blues and country and fitting them into something new and urgent. It is maybe not surprising that the White Stripes have dedicated their albums to Son House and now Loretta Lynn. Their stripped down instrumentation requires they write clean and authentic songs, and Jack White’s voice becomes a third instrument.

White Blood Cells breaks down into three sets of songs: the first 7 songs; three slower, less inspired numbers in the middle; and then a stretch of six, marginally more experimental songs. In the first set of songs, the fourth track, “Fell in Love With a Girl”, is a traditional rocker with a fantastic screeching chorus. It makes me want to throw paint. The seventh track, “the Union Forever”, features spoken word performances by Jack White which fall between Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed in style and substance. This track’s vocals alternate between rapid spoken word and the slower, bluesy voice Jack White exhibits when he is not screeching desperately. During the spoken word parts, the song acquires a theatricality that is picked up again in the third set of songs on the album. In this opening set of seven songs, the White Stripes mix it up: the opener “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” is a screechy blues number, the second, “Hotel Yorba”, possesses a country sensibility, and the third, “I’m Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman”, churns slowly. The superior production of this album has vastly broadened the range and texture of Jack White’s voice. On the sixth track, “Little Room”, White’s vocals sound live and almost confidential, paired with only percussion.

The middle stretch of songs fall flat. While the vocals are plaintive and the songs pretty enough, they don’t go much of anywhere. The eleventh track, “I Think I Smell A Rat”, breaks up the pattern and ushers in the final sweep of experimental songs. This one sounds like it was intended for a musical or the cabaret. The next track seems to be instrumental. And it is experimental in the sense of being largely unlistenable, a gurgling, distortion-heavy piece of industrial stuff. The country inflection returns in the fourteenth track, “Now Mary”. And the last track, “This Protector”, introduces Meg White joining Jack White on vocals, backed by Jack White on piano. It is simple, intimate, and compelling.

A number of things go unanswered. The liner notes contain an uncredited paragraph about a brother and a sister. The picture of a metamegakaryocyte suggests that large white blood cells are the album’s focus. The red and white theme seems to have something to do with De Stijl, an artistic movement of the 20s and 30s focused on minimalist design, often in primary colors. I guess minimalism finds its way into the music. But it is not really minimalism. If Son House and Loretta Lynn write minimalist music, then that is the spirit of minimalism the White Stripes evoke.

The White Stripes material is not topical. They do not write whimsical songs of fleeting youth and wilted relationships. They are not a sentimental band. But they are teaching us something about authentic songs and the kinds of traditional material belted out by bluesmen and countrysingers. They are taking the urgency and magic of those songs and learning how to adapt it to their own uses.

It is quite tempting to imagine Jack White forming an indictment against the frontier mentality here, but it could be that his girl likes gold, petrol, boats, and fancy houses. By choosing to write songs of oblique but intense drama, The White Stripes fall well outside the parameters of successful acts in music. By choosing to write songs in the larger spirit of Son House and Loretta Lynn, The White Stripes have created the minimal sound of rock today.
Can’t keep away from this girl These two sides of my brain Need to have a meeting Can’t think of anything to do My left brain knows that All love is fleeting She’s just looking for something new And I said it once before But it bares repeating

Word. This is a great album. Buy it and listen to it.