The White Stripes - Elephant
(V2)
The White Stripes first album recorded under the guise of international rock superstars is surprisingly free of sureshot pop radio hits. Instead, the White Stripes take up the role of misunderstood artistes and hole up in some English studio with some vintage reel-to-reels. Like Madonna before them, they are a half-baked fake accent away from being more limey than yankee, and give numerous shout-outs to the British way of life, like watching cricket and eating biscuits that are crumbly not flaky.
While this new found fame is a minor theme on the record, it does rear its head on the album's first single and leadoff track, "Seven Nation Army." Using an octave pedal, Jack White turns his guitar into a bass to propel this foot-stomping Chuck Berry-style rocker. It's a good little song, but it's the band (err... duo) at their least endearing, using the simplest effects to add a facade of depth to their simple songs and wrapping it up in lyrics that are completely unaffecting.
The album-ending track, "It's True That We Love One Another," revisits the Stripes' new found success, this time approaching all the husband-wife/brother-sister rumors that they themselves created with tongue fully in cheek. Inviting Holly Golightly along for the simplest Hee-Haw-skit sing-along, the public's fascination with their relationship culminates as a big joke, Meg responding to Holly's question of "Do you think that Jack really loves me?" with "You know I don't care cause Jack really bugs me," with Holly retorting "I love Jack White like a little brother." The sad fact is that this country crow-fest is the song that you'll be singing in the shower, not the electric-powered rockers that fill the rest of the album.
The rest of the album centers on Jack White's non-fictitious love life, White using the band's juvenile sound to explore his own juvenile outlook to love and life. The love of a mother is compared often to romantic love (what is it with guys from Detroit and Freudian complexes?), and both Meg and Jack refer to themselves as children wanting to feel older through love and sex: in "In the Cold Cold Night" Meg sings "I want to feel how a full-grown woman might," and in "I Want to Be the Boy" Jack sings of acting more mature so that an elopement won't be as much of a shock to his girlfriend's mother. The latter, with its romantic theme, prominent piano, and ballad-esque delivery, is probably the album's only "Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground"-like track—a song that is warm and sentimental instead of just a rocker.
In fact, the rockers are even more straightforward than previous albums. "Hypnotise" in a meaningless sub-2-minute blast of energy, using a Dale-like surf guitar part and a crazy, Jerry Lee Lewis-like delivery where every line seems to rhyme. "Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine" is a rocker about how girls have no faith in medicine, and that's about all you need to know. The album's best rocker and best song is the Rolling Stones-esque "The Hardest Button to Button," which does several start-stops instead of just going balls-to-the-wall, referencing the top button on your coat that seemingly wasn't made to fit in its hole.
To prove they are artistes, the White Stripes experiment a little more on this album, including sampling a TV editorial on the intro to "Little Acorns." "Little Acorns" is a sad fucking song. I'll be lucky if I don't bust out crying. A piano part accompanies the editorial, discussing how squirrels collecting acorns can be taken as inspiration that we can overcome our own obstacles, and when the editorial ends, the guitar plays the same piano-part with a thick, loud, chunky sound. I'm not sure if this song is at all inspired by Shellac's "The Squirrel Song;" if not, it proves that the only word you can rhyme with squirrels is "curls." In the White Stripes case, the squirrels are pure metaphor.
Actually, the main "experimentation" the White Stripes do is make things simpler and more authentic to the 50s and 60s music they are most inspired by. Which is fine by me, as no one in their right mind is thinking Jack White will have a Cobain-like effect on music. The music here sounds fine and has enough energy and vitality that it's weaknesses aren't offensive. Ultimately, though, the songs just aren't as good as the last album. In fact, a lot of the songs are just plain old mediocre.
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