The White Stripes broke up in February of 2011, happy birthday to me, I guess. They left behind a legacy of amazing music. I’ve seen them live about five or six times throughout my life. One time with Loretta Lynn opening for them. So, because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want. I’m going to rank their albums.

6. Get Behind Me Satan

I really wanted to love this album. It’s more piano centric than some of the others. It has some great tracks on it like “My Doorbell”, “Blue Orchid”, “Take, Take, Take” but it has the most tracks that I just don’t like “White Moon”, “Instinct Blues”, “Ugly As I Seem”, “The Nurse”. They’re not bad songs but they just don’t excite me. I come to a White Stripes album to get pumped and these just don’t get me there. This is kind of like a bad Beck album situation, where it’s not that great for the artist but for anyone else it would be an amazing album.

5. De Stijl

Once again, not a bad album. It’s a really great album but I just don’t revisit that often. I think what holds it back from being higher on the list is that certain songs are better live than they are on the album. “Let’s Build a Home” when it’s live is part of an amazing compilation where Jack White is driving it with solos and slides. “Death Letter” is another fun song live and what’s interesting is that my dad owned the same guitar that Jack uses on it. But like Get Behind Me Satan, there are just some songs on here that just aren’t my favorite. “Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me” and “Jumble, Jumble” are just kind of there.

4. The White Stripes

The self titled album was a great preview for what was to come. There are some classics on this like “The Big Three Killed My Baby”, “Sugar Never Tasted So Good” and “Screwdriver”. They also throw down some great covers like “Stop Breaking Down” by Robert Johnson, where unlike the Rolling Stones, they actually give the original artist credit! Also a definitive version of “One More Cup of Coffee” by Bob Dylan. It’s them at their earliest and wildest. It also has a strange claustrophobic feeling to it because it was just Jack and Meg and an 8 track recording device. Also, I would say it’s their bluesiest album. There’s so much slide on the solos and tracks. Once again, not a bad album. It just dwarfs in comparison to…

3. White Blood Cells

The breakout hit and for a reason. It has their first hit “Fell in Love With a Girl” along with “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground”, which is a tremendous song. I loved Citizen Kane as a kid so the “Union Forever” a song made up only of Citizen Kane lyrics is astounding. Also, the cute “We’re Gonna Be Friends”, which speaks to the fact that Jack White wanted the band to have an almost childlike nature to it. Then there’s the quick meditation on creativity, which I’m sure is the way the White Stripes feel “Little Room”.

“When you’re sitting in your little room/Working on something good/But if it’s really good/You’re gonna need a bigger room/And when you’re in the bigger room/You might not know what to do/So you’re going to have to think of how you got started/Sitting in your little room”

However what holds this back is clunkers like “Offend in Every Way”, “Finding it Harder to Be a Gentleman” and the confusing noise storm that is “Aluminum”.

God, writing this list just makes me want to listen to all of these albums straigh through again.

2. Icky Thump

This is another giant of an album. The only thing that holds this back is that I think the duo of “Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” and “St. Andrew(The Battle is in the Air)” are just not that great. But this is their final album and they are at the height of their power and abilities. Every song is like putting your tongue in the electric outlet. Jack White is letting loose on this album in a way that he hasn’t before like against the crackdowns on illegal immigration

“White Americans, what nothing better to do?/Why don’t you kick yourself out, you’re an immigrant too/Who’s using who? What should we do?/Well you can’t be a pimp and prostitute too”

If you listen to no other albums on this list, this one and the number one spot are the ones to check out. It’s just such a fun album.

1. Elephant

All killer, no filler. I could end it right there. This album is amazing. The first time Meg gets to take center stage on a song with “In the Cold, Cold Night” singing so softly that it’s a wonder that the mic picked her up. The obvious giant hit “Seven Nation Army”, which was meant to be a James Bond song but… well, I don’t really know why it wasn’t used. Then there’s “I Wanna Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart”, with its buttery guitar solos. The mighty “Ball and Biscuit” where Jack says a few lines here and there before ripping into some amazing solos. I’ve seen this song performed live and it’s amazing. The fact that this album was made without computer equipment is also amazing. Especially when you consider the all Jack chorus of “There’s No Home For You Here” where his voice is layered several times over to sound both angelic and demonic.

There’s a reason this album cemented them as rock and rollers for the ages. Listen to this album and have yourself a good day.

The elephant is not my terrible update consistency recently, which is something that I need to work on. But I’m going to work on it and fix it. Instead, I want to talk about a different Elephant.

For readers of this blog, you’ll know that I’m trying to listen to at least one hundred albums I haven’t listened to before. One of the benefits besides finding new music is that I’ve been listening to more music than I have recently. It’s helped me move away from my habit of rewatching videos that I’ve seen a thousand times.

However, now that I’m writing this, I realize that I’m just listening to songs that I’ve heard a thousand times before. To be fair, I don’t listen to that much Dreamtheater so the time sink isn’t that much. Maybe three or four minutes.

And while I feel like I’m wasting my time rewatching the same videos, listening to the same songs makes me feel like a warm blanket is being wrapped around me. It reminds me of different times, not always the best but… different.

To that end, while I was on my walk I started listening to tracks from the White Stripes’ Elephant. It reminded me how good that album is from start to finish. So, I decided in a new segment to break down every track on the album and my feelings on it.

1. Seven Nation Army
   I mean, come on, it’s the hit. The biggest hit of the White Stripes’ history. It starts with that sneaky guitar sounding like a bass. It then cuts into some excellent solos as Jack rides up and down the octaves like he’s surfing. I know that he used a Digitech whammy pedal that he would eventually develop his own dual version of later down the line. There’s not much to say about it except that it makes perfect sense that it became staple at sporting events and was going to be a possible James Bond movie opening. Jack would later do an intro to Quantum of Solace with Alicia Keys, which was the only good thing about that movie.
   
2. Black Math
   This is classic White Stripes. A song that features roaring guitars and the childhood nostalgia that makes up a lot of their songs like Apple Blossom and I Can Tell That We’re Gonna Be Friends. This one features another octave blazing solo before Jack comes back in with a tempo and melody change. He brings it home towards the end. I used to be able to play this on the guitar and it was so fun.
   
3. There’s No Home For You Here
   One of the best breakup songs ever written in my opinion. It feels so dispassionate but personal in the way that most relationships feel at the end. “I’m only waiting for the proper time to tell you that it’s impossible to get along with you”. Dang that’s cold. The thing is that the choral parts of this is that the album was recorded at a studio that featured lo-fi throwback equipment. It was recorded all on eight tracks with nothing pass the year 1963. So, while on a normal laptop this would take mere minutes, this effect was a lot of work.
   
4. I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself
   This is a cover of a Dusty Springfield song and it just goes to show the timelessness of Burt Bacharach’s writing. It’s a solid song but I just don’t have that much to say about it. It’s just a straight forward cover. Confusingly, the video had Kate Moss pole dancing in her drawers. I don’t understand, did we both have too much money to book her and run out of money to do anything bigger?
   
5. In the Cold, Cold Night
   Meg takes the stage on this one. Famously shy, her voice never gets that big or wild. But she that fits the song better in my opinion. The lyrics point out that she’s still a girl on the edge of womanhood trying to fall for a man that’s bad for her. Pretty classic setup and a reverse of male rock stars complaining that the girl is only 17 but they can’t wait that long because they’re pedophiles. There are no drums and the guitar is sparse as well. There is a solo in this but it’s a rumbling organ that brings some extra texture to the song.
   
6. I Want to be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart
   This is my favorite track on what’s already a great album. The song features the most piano work on the entire album. The song is about the narrator trying to win over his partner’s mother. As we get through the song we do get a warm and buttery guitar solo. It’s a great song through and through.
   
7. You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket
   This is what I would say is the weakest song on the album. It’s not that bad but it does take the album out of all killer, no filler. It’s just kind of slow and boring and there’s no Meg White on it. Skip.
   
8. Ball and Biscuit
   Sometimes if you’re one of the greatest guitarists in recent memory you need a song that you can just let loose on. White Stripes were notorious for jamming during shows. This just gave Jack the excuse. The lyrics are probably the most suggestive that I’ve heard from the White Stripes. Jack White cooing if I want a ball and a biscuit. Plus, he wants to get clean with me. You know what that means, wink. This song rules, it’s one of the longest at about eight minutes but the whole thing is worth listening to.
   
9. Hardest Button to Button
   The White Stripes had an early single called Hand Springs about getting angry while playing pinball. It was fairly simple, a single chord played during the verses and then some variation in between. This has a similar feel, thumping guitar and drums but as the song goes up and down throughout. The video for this is great where amps and drums appear as the two play. Apparently, Jack White didn’t like the concept that the video director, Michel Gondry put forth so, he started messing with the takes. Michel thinks it actually made the video better. They donated the amps and drum sets to a music school afterwards. The Stripes have a knack for making something simple into something incredible. That partly explains Meg’s drumming. You don’t need much for songs this good.
   
10. Little Acorns
    A song with audio from some kind of ancient self help movie talking about Janet learning from the squirrels, which is a line I would put in as a joke most other places. This intro makes me think about the Union Forever, a song from White Blood Cells where Jack took lines from Citizen Kane and turned them into one of their best songs. It’s also because this song has a kind of darker feel towards it. Kind of oppressive.
    
11. Hypnotize
    If Little Acorns is dark and oppressive, Hypnotize is lighthearted and playful. Reminds of a song from the sixties, just frolicking and getting to the point. No complicated solos here, just between the two verses we’re going to hit that fuzz pedal and hit you with some E chords.
    
12. The Air Near My Fingers
    I was going to be dismissive of this track as not one of my favorites but a re-listen made me reconsider. This one features something new, both organ and guitar being played at the same time, this rarely happened on Stripes’ songs because Jack always seemed to keep in mind how he was going to play them live. It would be unthinkable to bring anyone else out on stage, so you never knew what he was going to do with songs like this. Things would change down the line on Get Behind Me Satan and Icky Thump. But at the time, this was a surprise to me. It’s a song that feels like you’re walking down the street with change in your pocket. You got some options and it’s time to have some fun.
    
13. Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine
    Jack has gone on to say that he really doesn’t like this song. I can see why, he’s also taken a fairly feminist route to his songwriting and this one does seem to blame the narrator’s female cohort for a lot of things. It’s still a great song with a great solo in the middle of it. I was going to say that you could slow down the track, switch out the electric guitar for an acoustic and boom you’d have a Johnathon Richman song. But then I thought about it some more and realized that the writer of “The Girl Stands Up to Me Now” and “Not a Plus One on the Guest List Anymore” wouldn’t want to do this either.
    
14. It’s True We Love One Another
    A song where Jack and Meg play themselves and sing along with Holly Golightly. The three of them discuss the love between Holly and Jack, with Meg stating that Jack annoys her. Personally, I love songs like this where the singers are basically part of the story. Maybe it’s why I’m such a Swiftie. Anyway, like a lot of the end songs on White Stripes’ albums, it’s a quiet and gentle outro. Between the others, This Protector, Effect and Cause this is one of my favorites.

So, in the end, I have to say still a ten out of ten album. Give it a listen to when you get a chance.