For Cunning Stunt, a repost....
I did this while bored. Forgive the mistakes. Debate the song selection...wait do my readers have decent enough taste to listen to the stripes????
1. Icky Thump
The new big hit, a song with a misplaced solo and (as Adidasss described it) Baltic organs emerged on the radio in early 2007 with the same ethos as Get Behind Me Satan with an electrified arena-ready seasoning that reminded the masses that the stripes could still throw down and reinforced fans theories that GBMS was a Cobain-mindful celebrity dodge endearing them more to White’s Rock God persona.
“Well Americans, what? Nothing better to do? Why don’t cha kick yourself out you’re an immigrant too…”
2. Seven Nation Army
The map making house hold name that made the most vicious of protesters grit their teeth in admiration. Titled after a misnomer given to the “salvation army” by a young jack white, seven nation army uses one chord, a little slide, and a five note hook to scorch the airwaves of 2004 and leave every other single that year in the dust. With an ominous bass line intro (played on the guitar) that was as foreboding as it was danceable the stripes had their first sing along played by no less than five other acts that very year. The detractors hit this one hard with arguments of simplicity, reminding everyone else that elaborate is for philosophy and art films. Long live rock and roll.
“I’m going to Wichita, far from this opera for evermore. I’m gunna work the straw and make the sweat drip out of every pore”
3. Denial Twist
The funkiest white boy jam since Beck released “where its at.” Simple piano chords and some meg white shuffle carried an entire CD designed to shake the hounds off their trail; the stripes roll out a pop song with lyrics still bleeding from the break up. Dig the break down in this one, Jack White testifies like the Godfather himself.
“so now your mans, denying the truth and its getting in the wisdom in the back of your tooth, ya need to spit it out in a telephone booth while ya call everyone that ya know”
4. Fell in Love with a Girl
Coming in the Strokes sweep up of anything sounding remotely retro, fell in love with a girl was shorter than your average song on the radio that year by a good two minutes. Coming in around just under two minutes, the stripes packed enough fuzz, fury, and incoherent lyrics to make even the old folks sing along.
“Red hair with a curl, mellow roll for the flavor and the eyes for peeping, can’t keep away from the girl, the two sides of my brain need to have a meeting”
5. Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground
If Fell in love with a girl helped them draft off of the Strokes surge of popularity, Dead Leaves established the Stripes as their own band, dragging the high speed rush of everyone looking for New York bite down to the delta blues. The song had enough force to dreg up countless bands from Detroit that would otherwise have no shot. A persevering sound, and establishment of style and a minor preparation for the elephant that was about to come.
“soft hair and a velvet tongue, I wanna give ya what you give to me and every breath that is in your lounges is a tiny little gift to me”
6. Broken Bricks
Out of key singing, chords so stiff you can hear the bounce, and is Meg White just jingling keys at certain points? Possibly, but who cares, the stripes show up with more swing than you can shake a stick at, and when meg was potentially playing with actual sticks. Jack channels his inner Springsteen and tells a tale of blue-collar revelry and the man crushing the souls of another family.
“broke into the window panes just a rusty colored rain that drives a man insane you try to jump over water but you land in oil climb the ladder up a broken crane. Don't go to the broken bricks girl it's not a place that you want to be think of the spot your father spent his life demolition calls it Building C”
7. Rag and Bone
“This place is like a mansion, its like a mansion, look at all this stuff!” And so is this song. The stripes go grifting and come up with enough jump to remind you that bands never used to have to harvest 80’s **** synth to come up with a song people could get down to. Its hard to determine here if the stripes sound more like hobos, carnies, or used car salesmen but the slime that’s all over them in this one is very much their own, which despite all the comparisons is more than you can say for Zeppelin. Who knows, maybe its some amalgamate of all four.
“Well can't you hear we're selling rag and bone? Bring out your junk and we'll give it a home a broken trumpet or a telephone”
8. Instinct Blues
An unfinished song from an unfinished disc. Too simple and too obvious for any real fan to appreciate, and any non-fan to get. The Beauty of this one lives in its tortured bends and non-sequetir breakdowns. You can feel the grime build on you after this ones over.
“And all the chickens get it and them singing canaries get it. Whoo! Even strawberries get it I want you to get with it”
9. Death Letter
If the Stripes style wasn’t enough of a clue, Jack White ****ing loves Son House, so much so that he covers this throwback gem with notes so distant you’d think it was coming from House himself. Jack always did have the fine fingered knowledge to have those amps throw as much pain as the electric would allow and here he doesn’t let up an inch. The guitar work here might be too beautiful to describe.
“I gat a letter this mornin’ what do you rekon it read, it said the girl you love is dead”
|