You Took A White Orchid: Turned It Blue (Get Behind Me Satan - White Stripes)

Member Name: rleigh

Product:	Get Behind Me Satan - White Stripes
Date:	04/09/08 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some of the tracks are absolutely excellent.

Disadvantages: A number of tracks are actually quite painful to listen to.

'Get Behind Me Satan' is the fifth studio album from The White Stripes and it must be said that it's just a bit different from the norm. Every track present here sounds completely unique, and whilst some of the tracks work; others just don't. Full marks to the band for experimentation and creativity, not so many marks however for consistency. Whilst some of the tracks are quite impressive here, others have me quickly reaching for the skip button before my ears suffer too much. There are thirteen tracks present here, as I say though; not all of them are particularly worth listening to, and the likelihood is that you won't appreciate everything that you hear here (I certainly didn't).

A few of the better tracks from this album are those of 'Blue Orchid', 'Take, Take, Take' and 'I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)'. 'Blue Orchid' is the opening track, 'I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)' the closing track, whilst 'Take, Take, Take' is somewhere in between at number ten on the album. All three of these tracks are very different, equally impressive in their own ways however and all of them are well worth listening to. 'Blue Orchid' possesses a powerful guitar progression, 'I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)' on the other hand uses the piano to progress the track and this simple sound combined with the vocal output of Jack White really does come across incredibly well here. 'Take, Take, Take' utilises a simplistic drum beat and a simple piano sound also, the music works well though and once more the vocal sound of Jack White is incredibly striking here. The music is incredibly basic, supremely simple, and yet it works; the music sounds good, and in this instance less is most definitely more.

Jack White actually wrote every single track present on this album, I find it quite amusing how someone can get things so right with some tracks and yet so, so wrong with others. The album is incredibly inconsistent; ranges from brilliant to terrible, and yet the same person wrote every single one of the tracks present here; go figure. Another thing I find quite amusing about Jack White is his voice, he doesn't have a particularly good voice at the best of times; there are tracks where he makes the most of the voice that he does have however, with other tracks on the other hand he'll shriek and cry and his vocal tone can actually be quite painful to listen to. With the track 'As Ugly as I Seem' for instance his vocal performance is dreadful, with 'Blue Orchid' on the other hand he uses his whininess to his advantage and makes his guitar whine to go with it and the end result is absolutely excellent.

It's hard to put a genre on this album, impossible in fact; so many different sounds are covered here that there's absolutely no way of slotting the album nicely into any one particular genre or another. The band bounces here between such sounds as soul, funk, rock, and goodness knows what else; it's a very eclectic mix of tracks, a total mixed bag of an album which comes complete with some absolute classics as well as some total stinkers.

The sound is always very basic here, at times you do forget that there are only two people in this band however and it does in fact sound like an awful lot more. At some points though it becomes very obvious that there are only two people present in this band and the music is held back markedly as a result of this. The album was released in 2005, and if you liked any of the bands first four albums then there's no guarantee that you'll like this one also; the music is very different here and before listening you must therefore expect the unexpected. Prepare to be shocked, prepare to scared, and ultimately prepare to make mighty use of your CD players skip function; some of the tracks present here are probably best avoided, and if you do skip past them then you will enjoy the listening experience a lot more than if you don't. If you're looking for something a bit different then this could well be an album for you, it's not a great album and a number of tracks present here are actually pretty terrible; some of the music you'll absolutely love however and it's these tracks that the album is therefore well worth listening to for.


Label: XL Recordings
Release Date: May 30th 2005
Price: £9.98 (Amazon.co.uk)

Summary: 'Get Behind Me Satan' is an album well worth listening to for its better moments.