TMR Creative Collective

A series of thoughtful yet brief essays on the work of Jack White, one album at a time. These pieces are designed to highlight the dynamic path of this artist. Combined with active listening, they will bring you to a better understanding of the genius of Jack White.

By Rick Warner

Series Two

Elephant in the Room

Album 4: Elephant

This piece of work has us moving from the tree house of rock into the mansion of rock FORMATION. An unbelievable, dynamic expression of Stylized Noise and crunch, squelchy, trebly axe wielding power and trickery meant to be spread thick on your sonic toast. This feature focuses on the essential tracks. All are to be explored.

This piece of work is a clear, distinct, explosive shift that takes all of this artist’s influences, grinds them up and distributes new aural experiences to the listener’s identity.  This is a long playing record that says much in big tones and low whispers.  A complete, balanced effort.  This record becomes part of you and you are no longer casual about anything related to this artist.  

This is the Real Deal.

Ironically, this record opens with the song this artist would go on to close 99% of his live shows with. Seven Nation Army has become a global folk song. Its chant is heard around the world. A primitive, primal utterance that cannot be ignored. A slide guitar showcase, this song is unforgettable, menacing and eternal. We should be thankful this has happened in our lifetime. This song is HISTORY.

Black Math is part punk, part rock n roll and all STFU. This is genius in C-G-A. Furious and relentless. A boot to the throat of conformity and assholery. JW has explained in past interviews that this is the album when “solos just started happening.” What we hear here is one of this artist’s earliest solos and it is a banshee wail, a shrieking attack. Played often and with passion in the live show, the artist holds this song in high regard for its fun to play, brutally effective strumming pattern, cavewoman beat and how it delivers a punch that gets the audience FUCKING RILED UP.

If you have never blown out a pair of speakers in your life, this is the sleeper choice for just that from this album. There’s No Home for You Here is a complex, multi vocal’d, sinewy layered example of cosmic sustain. A lulling cymbal tap, a quietly spoken expression of dissatisfaction in human behavior, nuanced guitar work, a rake on the bridge at 1:52 (it’s quick-listen for it) and BANG into the stratosphere. Throw those cheap Radio Shack bookshelf units in the trash. They’re toast.

The next two features in this breakdown are paired together like matching rooks on the chessboard. I Want to be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart and You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket are delicate pieces. Tender and intentional. A singer singing his songs. A player playing his guitar. A piano player playing his piano. Purposeful and direct. Soft and meaningful messages. Listen for the subtle slide work and bright piano on the former and the pleading fragile vocals of the latter.

It’s a good thing you got yourself a new pair of speakers because you’ll need them where you are going. Fasten your life preserver and head into unsafe territory with Ball and Biscuit. This is the summary of the entire body of work. A turning point. A track that eclipses all that came before it and lays the groundwork for everything to follow. These are the noises of being nailed to the cross. These are the sounds of mankind realizing. Everything. These are the Three Solos. This is songcraft and witchcraft and Chris Craft on the open waters of the Blues Ocean. Throttle WIDE OPEN and FAR FROM LAND.

You can immediately hear a cleansed palate with The Hardest Button to Button. A fresh, driving beat, a direct message. A message that delivers crystal in the live show. Loud, fierce and punishing.

Little Acorns is this artist’s tribute to the brilliance that came before him. You can hear Nirvana, The Stooges, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin and every interesting note this musical enfant terrible ever heard growing up. A bouquet delivered by special guest, Mort Crim, to the doorstep of a lover who went missing. A longing, raging cry at the poster stapled to the telephone pole on the corner.

A short stroke of genius in fuzzed out tones and dangling pocket watches, Hypnotize is indeed a bold little jam that has the singer matching the drummer for beats, strums and intensity.

The Air Near My Fingers is a playful, multi-pronged, more complex piece than first appears, featuring some interesting keys and a vocal delivery unlike most in the catalog. Quietly weird and repetitive, the breakdown at the end has the artist saying it all with the keyboard.

Girl You Have no Faith in Medicine is a speedy rocker that is best delivered standing on the amp. Rare in the live show, but unmistakably a showcase for Detroit rock n roll when it does appear. The artist shouts and spits his way through this one much to the delight of the audience. Listen for the signal interrupter, bridge rakes and vocal echo at the end. Fun stuff.

Put the animals back in the cages. The circus is over. You will need a bigger tent from this point forward. Like its namesake, this album never forgets.

Album 5: Get Behind Me Satan

Following the fourth album would not be an easy task. This work showcases this artist in a direct and unapologetic retreat from the noisy battlefield that Elephant was. It unfolds in many complex, rhythmic and gentle tones. The artist is merely exploring The Truth and where it takes him. The truth has taken us to new instruments. It has taken us to piano driven melody and flourish. It has taken us along the path of incredible expression. FAR ahead of Satan. The tracks featured here are the key components. This album is diverse and all should be explored.

Blue Orchid opens with a riff that could be a Seven Nation Army outtake. Fuzzed out and thick. Meg’s drumming and cymbal work keeping JWIII in line and making her own statement that is clear and precise. A powerful and often played piece live.

Featuring some extensive piano, crashy drumming, spastic guitar interjections and new sounds from newly implemented instruments, The Nurse with its softly sung tale of betrayal and suspicion, is a creepy little tune that does not resolve. Exactly the point.

My Doorbell is a fun piano banging jam often played live to the crowd’s delight. Heard here is more of Meg’s crash course style, some of JW’s most stylized singing on the entire album. This is pop music from a Rock Star.

Little Ghost is an upbeat, double vocal track (listen for the distinct spoken track and the track that is sung in the artist’s trademark high Detroit pitch). A mandolin strummed, hillbilly sung, biblical ditty that makes you smile, dance and want to play mandolin. The artist’s keen ability to hear any genre and duplicate in his own style. Simple. Masterful.

White Moon is a song that requires a complete surrender and a deep and careful listen. At first listen it is a piano song. A plaintive cry accented with cymbal crashes and piano tickling. But what it really is is a poem of deep affectation. A rhyming, soulful lullaby where the main instrument is the singer.

For those waiting for something resembling the well known band of the same name, this tune is a White Stripes cover by the White Stripes on a new White Stripes album. Instinct Blues is indeed a blues jam. Heavy and thick riffs with purposeful creaky anti solos. Like an AI version of a WS song but the batteries are low on the machine. It puts the hammer down and gives you what you want but on this artist’s terms. A dangling piece of bait on the line…the shark is approaching.

Take Take Take takes things in a different direction. More musings to this artist’s Hollywood sweetheart of yesteryear, this song features a perfect blend of Meg’s drumming, JW’s piano and acoustic guitar strumming that make it an easy, sweet listen. Listen for the percussive piano breakdown around the 1:02 mark and the weird vocal bouncing from left to right in the speakers.

This next song is simply…a masterpiece. From the count in to the finish, this artist is in full command of his guitar, his voice and his soul. As Ugly As I Seem is an apology, a love song and a eulogy for sounds that have escaped from this guitar’s elegant strings. A disappearing and renewing. Truth and lies rolled into one soft timekeeping thump. One pluck. One lyric. This is complete and undeniable quiet genius. This is one track that you hear in your heart, not your ears.

Red Rain is a wailing, squealing exercise in accusations and slide guitar. A ripping, densely packed pentultimate scorcher that gives the listener the power of the electric guitar and all the fallout and chaos that it brings. Balanced with barely whispered vocals and quiet ringing bells, menacing lyrics of high warning, this is one that terrifies and satisfies.

This piece of work is a unique piece of the WS/JW puzzle. Many moments of brilliance in the songwriting and execution. This is what supernatural talent sounds like when it isn’t quite self aware. Yet.

Album 6: Icky Thump

The final White Stripes album and the closing chapter on the long and productive opening phase of this artist’s career.  Essentially 10 years of White Stripes music and ten years of incredible vision and expression.  From the self-titled debut and the raw, uncontrolled guitar and embryonic song form to what could be described here as a grand and incredibly executed coda.  Densely produced and never overdone, this piece of work retains, promotes, protects and cements the White Stripes “sound”.  The ultimate expression of this duo and the perfect, bittersweet goodbye.  Lush, aggressive, and purposeful.  

This album is essential and all tracks reveal the incredible progress of the artist.  These are the critical tracks.

This album opens with an explosion of sound and one of the most unforgettable riffs of the past 30 years. Icky Thump is a scalding and direct sonic assault. This is music that is meant to cranked up and devoured and shouted and recognized as what it clearly is…ASS KICKING ROCK N ROLL. With the pounding drum, the most recognizable tone in rock and the frantic, shuddering earth moving noises. This is a song that leaps and shakes out of the speakers.

300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues is an incredibly unique piece of songcraft. It somehow whispers and screams at the same time. A Pretty Doll marred by a missing eye. Perfectly layered. Perfectly recorded. Every note, every lyric, every shrieking anti-solo is necessary to fully express this moving piece. Look to the 2:05 mark to truly understand what an “anti-solo” is.

Hard charging and immediately gripping, Bone Broke demands your attention. The artist delivers the exasperated, panicked vocal at full throttle. The guitar is relentless and the drums never fail to link it all up perfectly. The “ha-HA” at 1:48 is simply a marker for the unbelievable fact that this song continues and ends as furiously as it started. This is what perfect rock n roll sounds like.

Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn is a mystical journey into sounds and images of centuries ago. Bagpipes and buggery choruses…dance of the hoppy lads and lasses and mead shall be consumed. Listen to a master of feel open the door with this wonderful, sweet sing-a-long and then close the door behind you and leave you feeling unsure with the intense and noisily angelic St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air). This formless guitar work could only be of a Divine Nature.

Little Cream Soda is a song that could only be found on Icky Thump. Almost more “Icky Thump” than the title track itself, this song is a reckless highway rip, a burnt out wreck in the ditch that you can’t take your ears off. The sounds are completely engrossing and simultaneously incomprehensible in their fury and scope. This is a masterpiece.

I’m Slowly Turning Into You is a great moment in the live show, and sometimes subject to a riveting re-imagining, this is always a moment of high drama. Part “Blue Orchid” and part “There’s No Home For You Here”, this song is a high powered vocal exercise and equally intense demonstration of JW guitar histrionics.

Muscular and unapologetic, Catch Hell Blues is a strong piece. Perhaps the strongest on the album. Listen to the singer. Listen to the piercing slide guitar work. Listen to it break down and build again. Slowly. This is the Blues JW style and it’s all the blues you’ll ever need. Hammering and other wordly wailing guitar, dire warnings about lying to God and the Ghost of Robert Johnson filling the room, this incredible song performed live is alone worth the price of admission. This has that indefinable “it” and God help you if you’re brave enough to search it out. Leave it alone.

This album is an expression of power (refined, not raw) and control. The cycle of giving it up and regaining it by force. The noises and sonic chaos on this record have no equal in the catalog and bookends the White Stripes productivity with three exclamation points.

Stay tuned for the next three in the series, which will feature JW’s solo records.