White Noise (De Stijl - The White Stripes)

Member Name: george_lazenby

Product:	De Stijl - The White Stripes
Date:	10/01/02 (168 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fresh, all my favourite musical styles on one album, except rap, though that's probably a good thing in context

Disadvantages: Might seem twee

If you read the NME, then your 2001 was probably dominated by three bands - 'So Solid Crew' (yeucch!), 'The Strokes' (who are just a little too posh-playing-at-punk to be completely successful), and The White Stripes, who are probably the oddest band to break through last year, and very much my favourite. In a way, the NME's slavering over the Stripes became slightly irritating, but I think I understand why they got so excited. This music sounds completely fresh, completely uninflected, and there's narry a sample or a fake drum beat in earshot.

For me, one of the big advantages is that Jack and Meg White have been recording for a couple of years already, and yet until the middle of the year, I'd never heard of them, which means that having bought 'White Blood Cells' and really enjoyed it, I didn't have to wait for more music - I could simply go out and get their eponymously-named debut 'White Stripes' and this, 'De Stijl', the middle album. The band is no more than a pair of horrendously fresh-faced siblings from Detroit: Meg plays drums, while Jack is the singer and guitarist. On some of the best tracks on 'De Stijl', that's literally what you get - drums, guitars, vocals - and it's fantastic.

I bought a Kinks album last week, and was immediately struck by how pure and simple-sounding every track was, even the most ambitious. These days, music is amorphous, incestuous and - dare I say it - post-modern, so you have bits and pieces of all sorts of people. The White Stripes have endless influences, but they don't hamper the music in the way that Noel Gallagher has gradually disappeared up the arse of his record collection. While really old-style blues are what the pair quote as their biggest influences (they covered tracks by Robert Johnson on 'White Stripes', and the last track on 'De Stijl' is a seemingly spontaneous cover of Blind Willie McTell's '
Your Southern Can is Mine'), there are all sorts of good things in here. Jack sings like Robert Plant of Led Zep, and frequently plays guitar like Jimi Hendrix (especially on the hypnotic 'Sister, do you know my name'), while there's a bluesy feel to most of the songs, and Meg sometimes hammers the drums like it's 1977 and she's auditioning for the Pistols.

If you like categories, 'De Stijl' is rock, stripped down to its barest essentials. Of the thirteen tracks, only 'A Boy's Best Friend' is slow (and feels like a genius collision of John Lee Hooker and the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and generally it's a very upbeat, if slightly shambolic album. It feels loose and improvised, incredibly fresh as if the pair just went into a studio and put 13 tracks down in as long as it took to play them out.

There are things to put you off - Meg's hair is always in bunches which makes her look like she's about 12, and the design of the album is quite twee, with lots of red and white block colours, which seems a bit cheesy. The band's image is generally a bit nice, and sometimes the youthful innocence bleeds into the music too much ('Little Bird' is a corny song, there's no way round it). But old farts like me turn on Radio 1 and the endless mindless pap of the charts makes me switch off completely. 'De Stijl' has a raw energy, a battery of musical styles that mesh together perfectly, and best of all, there's no pose, no bullshit arrogance in the band. This is about good music, played with style but absolutely no frills. And when you see bands like Muse throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the studio just to get a reaction, you have to warm to a pair of odd-looking kids who sometimes sound like they've just emerged from the garage with a demo, but hook you from start to finish with sheer verve.

Tracks:
1 You're Pretty Good Looking (for a girl)
Perfe
ct opening, a completely straightforward rock song, driving beat, heavy guitars.

2 Hello Operator
A song which could have been recorded in 1969; a little bit of Doors, a little bit of Beatles, and unlimited air guitar possibilities.

3 Little Bird
Slightly too twee, but with authentic blues shot through it.

4 Apple Blossom
Hey! It's like Slade never split up!

5 I'm bound to pack it up
The Led Zepplin influences just explode her; if I played it to you as a lost Led Zep track, a rehearsal for 'Stairway to Heaven', you'd believe it.

6 Death Letter
Very sexy blues song, complete with authentic, non-Detroit dialect and a classic lost-love theme.

7 Sister do you know my name?
Hey! It's like Jimi Hendrix never died!

8 Truth doesn't make a noise
Led Zep 2

9 A Boy's Best Friend
Very laid-back, almost sleepy, dizzy-making guitars, almost psychedelic.

10 Let's Build a Home
Driving punk song, absolutely fantastic - at my Steps split party, we attempted to pogo to this one despite the fact that we were all about four when punk was at its height.

11 Jumble, Jumble
All right, there was also some head-banging for this one, but I was at no stage involved.

12 Why Can't You Be Nice to Me?
The song which is most like Hendrix's 'Foxy Lady', which cannot be a bad thing.

13 Your Southern Can Is Mine
"Now lookee here, Momma" are the first four words of this note-perfect blues tribute, just two voices, an acoustic guitar and a tambourine, two and a bit minutes of sheer bliss.

Summary: