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Elephant The White Stripes BMG, 2003
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After firmly establishing themselves as the undisputed rock 'n roll resurrection, The White Stripes have answered their growing frenzy of devotees with one dud of an album. A band that, just last year, was universally hailed as a much-welcome throwback to a sound long dead, the stripped down guitar/drums duo from Detroit seems about as interested in fanning the flames of their growing fame as a 25-year-old Neil Young. "That album put me in the middle of the road, so I headed for the ditch," Young, who followed up 1972's monumental Harvest with the deliberately inaccessible (and long out-of print) "Time Fades Away" in 1973, explained years later. It seems that the White Stripes are up to much of the same thing here, on the careless, uninspired and puerile Elephant. What were addictive and delightfully anachronistic rockers on De Stijl and White Blood Cells have given way to a drab collection of clunkers that sound more like sloppy, half-baked demos and outtakes from the White Blood Cells sessions. It isn't that The White Stripes ought to be confined to the precise recipe of past successes, but rather that as they mature and grow into their own sound, they might build on the thoughtful and engaging project they began a few years ago. Elephant, instead, marks a considerable step backward. Taut, muscular collections doused in blues and grit such as De Stijl demonstrated a mammoth potential, rekindling the hopes of long-time subscribers to "rock is dead" mantra. The orgasmic cacophony that emerged from Meg White's sizzling drums and Jack White's guitar and uncanny wail produced a sound that resounded with improbable richness and fervor. The sound was hardly unfamiliar but still, somehow, distinctive. From gorgeous rock ballads like "Same Boy You've Always Known" to raucous jams like "Fell In Love With A Girl" or the brain-searing "Let's Build A Home," Meg and Jack White, knowingly or not, had taken the fate of rock 'n roll into their hands. Beginning with an unlikely bass line complimented by Meg's angry, thumping drums, Elephant serves as a mighty tease. Just as it seems that Jack and Meg White, a divorced couple often posing as brother and sister, discovered a sound of even deeper texture and richness without compromising their essential minimalism, the album unfolds into so much noise and nonsense. If the raucous and inexplicably titled "Black Math" sounds encouragingly similar to the famed "Fell In Love With A Girl," subsequent songs demonstrate that this is merely coincidence. Song after song rings hollow, as Jack's lazy guitar simply languishes through the old motions, and the downright irreverent snap of Meg's drumming is conspicuously dormant. A shrieking, murky chorus ruins the aimless "There's Just No Home For You Here," while "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" sounds, at best, like an anemic stepchild to superior ballads from past albums, such as "Union Forever" and "The Same Boy You've Always Known." Perhaps Elephant's most egregious moment comes on the pseudo-poetic "In The Cold Cold Night," on which Meg White sounds entirely foolish, lending a self-conscious and timid croon to lines so juvenile as to be the stuff of bad teen angst poetry: I saw you standing on the corner, "I don't care what other people say, I'm gonna love you anyway," she continues to the plucking of a guitar lick that sounds like a ragged attempt at nailing down the Pink Panther song. As with most rock 'n roll mishaps, though, a few gems emerge from the rubble of an unfortunate album. The explosive "Seven Nation Army" resounds with such energy and purpose as to seem like the work of another band altogether. The mean-eyed "The Hardest Button to Button" would crack an indulgent smile from the mouth of any AC/DC die-hard, and a flicker of soul ignites the piano-drenched "I Want To Be The Boy." Overall, however, the once formidable White Stripes seem
to have morphed into a joke that few others are cool enough
to get. "Just say Jack do you adore me," Meg slurs on the
silly, throwaway tune recorded with punk-rocker Holly
Golightly, "It's True That We Love One Another." "Well I
really would Holly but love really bores me" Jack answers.
Judging from the remarkably listless Elephant, one
wonders whether the music, too, bores poor Jack. | May
2003 |
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