An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday
In honor of Jack White's birthday this past weekend I thought I'd take a look at his first album with his first band The White Stripes. Similarly to another punk influenced band, Green Day, The White Stripes debut album is extremely dirty, grainy and lo fi to the extent of sounding more like a collection of demos than a studio album. Unlike Green Day however, the style of The White Stripes actually works really well with all of the grime. It was clear right from the beginning that the White Stripes were a raw and nasty sounding punk band who loved the blues.
Before we get too deep into this review let me state, I am a huge Jack White fan. Jack White makes up about 75% of my interest in learning the guitar and the gear that I’ve bought for my guitar. Despite this, I wasn’t much of a White Stripes fan until fairly recently; while Icky Thump was the first time I heard White I was way more into his two solo albums before I ever went back and listened to anything else from The White Stripes. Ironically, one of the things that I love about The White Stripes now is what turned me off of them in the first place, noise.
While the production would get better on their later albums, The White Stripes were always a noisey band, being heavy in the most non metal way possible. The perfect example of this can be seen in the only single to come off of this album The Big Three Killed My Baby. This track features Jack White and his guitar competing to see who can scream louder at the big three auto manufactures that he blames for ruining his hometown of Detroit. This is one of the few songs where Jack White sound legitimately angry as well as being one of the few songs he’s written that is clearly about his own personal experiences.
Along with standout original tracks such as I Fought Piranhas, Jimmy The Exploder and Astro, The White Stripes debut also features multiple covers. Jack shows off his blues influences with a reworking of the Robert Johnson song Stop Breakin’ Down Blues entitled simply Stop Breaking Down. Along with covering Johnson, White also included lines from his favorite bluesman Son House, utilizing the chorus of John The Revelator in Cannon. And last in his trio of blues covers is a semi gothic piano rendition of the blues standard St. James Infirmary Blues.
Along with these blues covers, this album also features a cover of Bob Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee. The cover is played fairly straight, only deviating in Jack’s style of guitar playing. After listening to both versions I would have been perfectly okay never hearing the Bob Dylan version, and I actually like Dylan.
This entire album has the band wearing their influences on their sleeve, from the blues covers and punk attitude to the smattering of folk influences. Interestingly, this album is a lot like White’s solo album Lazaretto in that it can work as a rosetta stone for all of his other work. Both albums feature folk songs that are similar to the style of The Raconteurs and gothic tracks that are similar to The Dead Weather.
Unlike the previous first album I reviewed from Twenty One Pilots, it is clear that Jack and Meg had their sound and their identity down by the time they recorded this record. The only thing that would really change between this album and The White Stripes later work is production value, but in all honesty this music works fines with hum, buzz and noise. I wouldn’t say this is my favorite White Stripes album, but it is a strong contender for second place.
Album on Google PlayAlbum on ITunes
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