The White Stripes Icky Thump: Throwback Album of The Week

Throwback Album of The Week is posted every Wednesday

    Today, in honor of the 10 year anniversary of Icky Thump as well as the impending delivery of my Third Man Records Vault Package 33, I am reviewing one of my favorite albums of all time, Icky Thump by The White Stripes. Icky Thump is the final studio album recorded by The White Stripes before their breakup in 2011 and was the first album I ever heard featuring Jack White. Icky Thump actually sits as a bit of an oddity in The White Stripes collection, featuring the loudest and most abrasive sound of any of their records. While each record by The White Stripes has it’s own variation on their core sound, Icky Thump took that sound and cranked it up to 11.

    The opening track by the same name as the album was an eye opener the first time I heard it; I didn’t know you could have a song with a guitar riff as the chorus. The heavy palm muted guitar on the verses perfectly mixes with Meg White’s drumming to create this track’s punk swagger and build up to the crescendo of the chorus. The demented keyboard scattered throughout and Jack’s rapid fire vocals create the perfect opening track.

    The next track is a favorite of mine because of the lyrics, where Jack mocks and offers advice to someone who doesn’t understand the difference between love and following commands. You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) is one of the snarkier tracks on here as even though Jack is attempting to offer advice he can’t help but be annoyed by their lack of understanding. The instrumentation on here is classic White Stripes, a perfect mix of rock aesthetic firmly rooted in the Blues.

    Next we have 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues, the mostly acoustic soft track of this album. Jack has an affinity for putting one of two of these on every album and this is a particularly strong one. Despite some very nonsensical lyrics the track conveys the feeling of disinterest and boredom that I think Jack was going for. The lyrics that aren’t seemingly just there cause they sound good or that are about Jack’s love of redheads seem to be conveying a sense of pointlessness.

    The last track I’m going to cover in depth is Conquest, one of the most interesting tracks on this album. While Jack has used similar styles before (I Think I Smell A Rat) he goes all out with the Mariachi style here, featuring a horn section to follow his vocals or guitar riffing. This track features some of the heaviest guitar sounds Jack has ever done, sounding like they would be at home on a metal album. The song about a Don Juan character who winds up falling for his conquest and being the prey to her marital ambitions works perfectly with the music video that features Jack literally becoming the prey in a bull fight.

    The rest of the album is similarly fantastic with highlights being the bagpipe driven tracks Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn and St. Andrew along with the spoken word track Rag & Bone. Aside from their first album, this is the only White Stripes album that I will routinely listen to all the way through rather than skipping around for my favorite tracks. The album is paced amazingly well, ebbing and flowing without ever losing any steam or hitting a dead spot. I highly recommend this to any rock fans and especially to anyone who likes similar acts like Arctic Monkeys, The Kills, Black Keys, Queens of The Stone Age or Royal Blood.

Album on Google Play
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Album on Third Man Records

The White Stripes: An Album a Day

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 Third Man Records

Album on Google Play

Album on ITunes

Album on Amazon