Customer Reviews
AN ELEPHANT A LITTLE LOW ON IRON
At best, White Blood Cells highlights the work of a band trying to recreate a sound already put out by Foo Fighters, only to somewhat miss being in their element. White Stripes' early attempt with White Blood Cells is a decent release that undermines their potential, which would come to surface in the followup, Elephant.
A serious effort to produce a masterpiece just did not seem to be there. The songs, individually, sounded good, especially with Jack White's energetic vocals. Compared with Elephant, however, White Blood Cells reflects a mere garage band type project. The instrumentation was there, but artistic direction seemed lacking. The creative humor and gothic pensiveness did not consistently blend together.
Don't get me wrong. This is a good CD, but I don't think that it will stick with very many for five years after the first listen. Elephant, on the other hand, has that magnetic appeal to it.
But hey! If White Blood Cells is what it took to lay the groundwork for outstanding future releases along the lines of another Elephant, then great!!
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White Blood Cells
One of my top 10 CDs. What more can I say- Meg & Jack rock! I love the eclectic sound and the dramatic sound they created.
Their third album remains one of their greatest
Their first and eponymous album was excellent, but they got much, much better on DE STIJL and have stayed pretty much on that level ever since. What has most struck me about the White Stripes is how astonishingly consistent they have been. They are often described as minimalists, but I've never been able to make much since of that. To me they sound as wonderfully ornate as a band consisting of only two people can. It is true that Meg White is a wonderfully primitive drummer, but few musicians today can trot out the varied bag of tricks that makes up Jack White's remarkable repertoire. He seems to me to be the most endlessly resourceful musician working in America today. What is amazing about that is he has more or less continued to work in the same blend of blues and garage rock with healthy doses of country tossed in for flavoring. I suspect that what many mean by calling them "minimalist" is that they only have a drummer and guitarist. Nothing else quite adds up.
There is a fine documentary on the Pixies entitled loudQUIETloud whose title hints as the core of the White Stripes' aesthetic as well. Jack White's music is all about contrasts, whether loud/quiet or harsh/soft or muscular/delicate. One of fine example of this on the album is the superb "I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman," which contrasts the softly sung verses with hard driving musical bridges. But even the sentiments expressed in the song are contrasts. Jack laments that his good manners are fading away, but then belies the sentiment and tries to justify his rudeness: "If I held the door for you/It wouldn't make your day. "
DE STIJL represented a huge improvement in Jack White's songwriting, but he is even sharper in this one. The album is littered with great songs, including a few that are nothing short of masterpieces. "Fell in Love with a Girl" is to this day one of the White Stripes three or four greatest songs, played and sung at a frenetic pace, Jack, who belongs to the school of rock performers who believes that if lyrics are worth singing they are worth singing clearly, barely able to keep up lyrically with the rest of the song. This is another song that belies the notion that they are a "minimalist" band.
There are probably only 4 or 5 White Stripes songs that I haven't enjoyed listening to repeatedly from all their albums and none of those are on this album. I might not quite like this album as much as ELEPHANT, but it is close. But I don't think I like any initial group of songs on any of their other albums as much as I love the four that kick this off. "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," "Hotel Yorba," ""I'm Finding It Hard to Be a Gentleman," and "Fell in Love with a Girl" are so stunning that they diminish the rest of the album by contrast. That is not to say that there aren't great moments. "We're Going to Be Friends" is as great as those first four songs and many other songs on the album are memorable. But no group of songs after those first four is as strong.
If you are in any sense a serious fan of contemporary rock music there isn't a single White Stripes album that doesn't fall into the "must own" category. You really need all of them. .
. You can see a complete list of all White Stripes discography, or go back to the White Stripes tabs
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