Rocks greatest W – #2 – The White Stripes

Fell In Love with A Girl – The White Stripes (2001, XL Records, Taken from ‘White Blood Cells’)

Points 191

Highest Position First Twice

Pretty much from the start, the Greatest W in Rock Countdown came down to two bands, The White Stripes and the band that finished first.  At first the Stripes looked like they were going to walk it.  At the half way stage, Jack and Meg were 18 points clear at the top, and were regularly appearing in the Top Three of nearly set of votes that came in.    There was one simple reason for this, The White Stripes were incredible and when the first emerged at the turn of the century that were doing things and making sounds that no bands were making or even daring to make.  Or as Middle Aged Man puts it,

“The White Stripes for a short period were the best on the planet, not only was the music amazing but their fashion sense was stunning.  Although being ginger I could never wear red”.

The Same Boy You’ve Always Known – The White Stripes (2001, XL Records, taken from ‘White Blood Cells’)

It was perhaps ‘White Blood Cells’, the bands third album that saw them breakthrough amidst massive critical acclaim, the Daily Mirror for instance called them ‘The Greatest Band since the Sex Pistols’, which whilst sort of right, also suggests that the stereo in the Daily Mirrors office hadn’t been updated since the late seventies because the “greatest bands since the Sex Pistols” are in order, Modern Romance, JoBoxers, De La Soul, James, Oasis, Northern Uproar,  Terris, the Strokes and then The White Stripes.  Regardless, it was ‘White Blood Cells’ and the tracks on it, that won them an army of fans.

Here’s Another Jim to explain it from his perspective,

“I probably heard them first around the same time as most other people – ‘Hotel Yorba’ which blew me away and I loved them from them on – although to me they never got better than ‘White Blood Cells’ – I saw them around then and they were the closest I’d seen to the Pixies – Jack White is an incredible guitarist and front man – Meg’s drumming gets a lot of flak but sometimes it’s not about being a great drummer (which she is) but its about being the RIGHT drummer and unquestionably her drumming is right for The White Stripes (you only have to look at everything Jack’s done since and there’s nothing as consistently good as The White Stripes)”. 

Hotel Yorba – The White Stripes (2001, XL Records)

If ‘White Blood Cells’ won them fans, the three albums that followed it, kept them at the top of rocks premier league.  ‘Elephant’ came first and that for me is the pinnacle of the bands career.  ‘Elephant’ is an astonishing record, full of great songs, incredible guitar solos (like the one on ‘Seven Nation Army’ for instance) and it contains some of Meg’s finest drumming.

Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes (2003, XL Records)

After ‘Elephant’, the band returned with a more striped back affair called ‘Get Behind Me Satan’, which despite seemingly abandoning their punky blues style for a more fresh approach, it gained them yet more critical acclaim.

The Denial Twist – The White Stripes (2005, V2 Records)

The last White Stripes album was ‘Icky Thump’ and that heralded a return to the punky garage rock that they had become synonymous for, and it gave the band a Number 2 hit in the UK, with the title track,

Icky Thump – The White Stripes (2007, Warner Brothers Records)

I’ll let The Robster have the final word on The White Stripes because I think he summed up what a lot of people were thinking at the time, especially chaps in their 30s, who were sighing and reaching for the cardigans.

“Second place goes to the White Stripes, a band who thrilled me as I turned 30, thus ensuring I didn’t slump into typical 30 something blandness where Coldplay were considered the most cutting edge band in my life”. 

And so we reach the end, here is the final lyrical test.

“He’s got you back and that’s all he wants.  A lot more than I’m left with”

A Month of Bands from Canada – #19 Tegan & Sara

Everything is Awesome – Tegan & Sara (2014, Water Tower Music)

Most of you with children will of course recognise that this is the song that features extensively in both the wonderful Lego Movies.  If you haven’t seen either of them, then you probably need to get out more.  They are a lot of fun.  I saw the second Lego Movie in a big cinema in Bournemouth with my daughter when she was about seven.  Back then, when she was seven, Lego rocked her world. 

‘Everything Is Awesome’ is a brilliant song – ridiculously catchy, irritatingly so in fact.  A shameless ode to friendship, working as a team and feeling great.  The sort of song that we should all hate because it is so gloriously upbeat – but its also the sort of song that is so brilliantly camp and so infectiously moreish that it is impossible not to love it.

Of course, we tried to make our own Lego movie using some stop motion software, and lots of tolerance – we spend hours building houses, cars and specific models from the Lego versions of famous films, – the huge castle from Beauty and the Beast was the backdrop for the movie.  We built schools for all the Lego figures we had collected, we built prisons for the Lego baddies, we built a beach so that the figures could use the Lego boat we built.  Our film lasted precisely 45 seconds and took nearly three days to make.  Last year when my phone got stolen in a park in London, I thought I’d lost it forever.  I’d never hear that squeal of laughter when the baddies got eaten by the Lego shark, a squeal that was just too good to edit.   Thankfully I found the back up.  If only because I want to show the video at her wedding or her eighteenth birthday or something.

In the second Lego Movie (and a huge spoiler is coming up, if you haven’t seen it – but that sort of serves you right, because it’s incredible and you missed out), a new version of ‘Everything is Awesome’ was released.  In that film, the Lego world very existence was threatened by a pair of squabbling siblings and the mother tipped all the Lego in a big bin.  The hero was stranded underneath a cupboard and a slowed down version of the track starts up.  A solitary piano strikes up and then a cast of thousands start singing about how everything was not awesome, cheeky references to listening Radiohead and Elliot Smith fire in alongside lyrics about being depressed.  Its wonderful – especially when the cheesy Disco beat kicks in where everything becomes awesome again – but not as irritatingly infectious as the original.

Everythings Not Awesome – Various Artists (2019, Water Tower Music)

Today’s randomly chosen and the penultimate Canadian act are Calgary twin sisters Tegan and Sara, who are only in my record collection because of ‘Everything Is Awesome’ and because of the track ‘Walking with A Ghost’ which I have on a compilation CD given away with a magazine.

Walking With A Ghost – Tegan and Sara (2004, Sanctuary Records, Taken from ‘So Jealous’)

‘Walking with A Ghost’ is taken from their fourth album ‘So Jealous’ which is perhaps their most successful record.  It saw the band move away from their more indie folk roots towards a more punky pop sound (although that is slightly pushing it – the sound is more 80s power pop to be honest).  I’ve been listening to it whilst writing this and it’s a really good album. 

Around six months after ‘Waling With A Ghost’ was released The White Stripes covered it as part of a new EP and possibly made it even better than it already is.

Walking With A Ghost – White Stripes (2005, Third Man Records)

That EP was only made available on iTunes I think – so you’ll have to put up with the You Tube version. 

Here are two more tracks from Tegan and Sara’s ‘So Jealous’ album,

Where Does The Good Go – Tegan and Sara (2004, Sanctuary Records)

Speak Slow – Tegan and Sara (2004, Sanctuary Records)

A couple of years ago after a short break Tegan and Sara returned with an entirely acoustic version of the ‘So Jealous’ album (called ‘Still Jealous’).  Here is the acoustic version of ‘Walking With a Ghost’.

Walking with a Ghost (Still Version) – Tegan And Sara (2021, Warner Bros Records)

Here’s the current table. Calgary making a late dash for the silver medal.

Toronto	8
Montreal	3
Calgary	3
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Hallifax	1

Here is the final lyrical clue – the first correct guess in the comments section wins the chance to walk across a room in the dark in barefeet after my daughter has been building things with Lego.

“What would that make you feel like if you couldn’t do the things that you like to do anymore Because you were in prison”

Song with Fruits in the Title – A Three Day Series – #1 The Apple

Kennedy – Wedding Present (1989, RCA Records)

You can blame my mother in law if you like.  Or better still you can blame Bill, my brother in law.  You see a few weeks ago it was my mother in laws seventieth birthday and as is the way these days we all put on our glad rags and went to a posh hostelry for a slap-up meals of cheese kebabs, fish and chips and ham and eggs (genuinely what we had).

Bill, was, as ever, late.  He’s always late.  You tell Bill to be somewhere at eight, he’ll arrive at eight thirty.  Once we had a big important family roast and told him that dinner would be served at one pm, and we all sat there, potatoes, slowly crisping up to the point that they could be used as Lego Bricks, until he arrived at a quarter to two. 

We even got to the point of telling Bill a different earlier time to everyone else in order to get him there on time.  That didn’t work either.  He was still late.  Anyway, he’s late.  Again.

We are not talking, bride walking down the aisle for the first time, fashionably late, we are talking uncomfortably, rumbling tummy late.  He saunters in, blames the traffic and then proceeds to eat all the bread that we had deliberately left until he arrived. 

Around eight thirty the waitress comes round and takes our order for dessert.  Bill jumps in first and proudly declares that he would like the apple crumble.  There are nods of approval, everyone wants apple crumble, mostly with custard please.  Two minutes later the waitress comes back and says that there is only one apple crumble left, which Bill claims very quickly as he ordered first and leaves the rest of us to decide amongst ourselves as to what we will have (I have sticky toffee pudding in case you are wondering. It was ok.  I love apple crumble though and am in a sulk for the rest of the night.  It’s the undisputed king of puddings, face facts banoffee pie).

So, in honour of the apple crumble that I didn’t eat – here are five songs with apples in their title.  We’ll kick off with this garage rock blast from the second White Stripes album.

Apple Blossom – The White Stripes (2000, Sympathy for the Record Industry, taken from ‘De Stijl’)

Next up another duo who made a terrific racket most of the time.

Watching The Big Apple Turn Over – Carter USM (1992, Chrysalis Records, Taken from ‘the Love album’)

It’s always difficult to follow Carter USM, but let’s pop over to Canada for something (almost) brand new from Braids, an electro trip hop group who are much beloved of these pages.  They’ve released a new album this year called ‘Euphoric Recall’– which is as usual a bit brilliant – the second track on that is called ‘Apple’.

Apple – Braids (2023, Secret City Records, Taken from ‘Euphoric Recall’)

Talking of bands that are releasing new material this year.  London based four piece indie band Tribes are back back back apparently.  What do you mean you don’t remember them leaving in the first place.  Anyway, they have a new album – their first in ten years.  Ten long years folks, its probably worth the wait, if you think it’s still 2015 kind of way.  The debut album by Tribes, had a song on it called ‘Bad Apple’.

Bad Apple – Tribes (2012, Island Records, Taken from ‘Baby’)

Finally today, as I scroll through the music library casually ignoring the Beady Eye song with Apple in the title we arrive at this.

Applesauce – Animal Collective (2012, Domino Records, Taken from ‘Centipede Hz’)

Tomorrow The Orange

Rocks Greatest J’s – #12 Jack White

……. Out of coffee and cotton

Lazaretto – Jack White (2014, Third Man Records, Taken from ‘Lazaretto’)

Points 34

I’m going to start with something from Jury Member 14.  Who was one of two Jury Members who scored Jack White in their Top Three.  Jack White also featured in five other Top Tens (including mine as it happens).

“singer, songwriter, multi -instrument, producer, record label owner, furniture upholsterer.  Is there nothing Jack White can’t do?  He changed popular alternative music with the White Stripes, the band who indisputably saved the 2000s”

JM 14 is quite right, Jack White does seem to have an inexhaustible range of talents.  This is a man, after all, that John Peel described as being “the most exciting talent he’d seen since Jimi Hendrix” (more of him later) and the New York Times called “the most original and mysterious rocker to have emerged since Kurt Cobain”.  Which seems kind of excessive, I remember people saying the same thing when Craig Nicholls of the Vines first jumped onto a stage.  Still….

The last time I saw Jack White play live was at Glastonbury 2016, where he was on stage swigging heavily from a bottle of champagne, clearly roaringly drunk and yet still managing to get sounds of out of his guitar that no one else has since, well Jimi Hendrix I suppose.  He was also playing a theremin and other strange and magical instruments.  It was brilliant, if not slightly bonkers.

Of course, JM14 left one thing off his list of the things Jack White does well. He also owns a record shop smack bang in the middle of London’s Soho (although its called the same thing as his label – but we could add ‘Businessman’ to that list I suppose) and the extraordinarily brilliance of that flicks everything Jack White does into a top hat to be honest and so last week when I was in London for a few days with the family and whilst the females went off to wander around a museum about Churchill, I checked out Jack’s Third Man Records Shop, – although it kind of is a Jack White Merchandise Shop -it might just be the greatest record shop in the world.

It has all sorts of stuff in it, loads of vinyl, loads of White Stripes material and Jack’s solo work (as well as other Third Man acts).  The coolest thing is this old phone booth which you can listen to songs in before you buy them.  It also has a gig space in the basement and book vending machine.    You can also pay about fifteen pounds and spend two minutes in the instore recording studio.  There are guitars and amps all set up if you want to mess around as well.   I could have stayed there most of the day.

So to bring it back to JM 14’s comment, is there anything Jack White can’t do? Well, let’s look at his music contributions

Since leaving (or disbanding) the White Stripes, Jack White has released five solo albums, including two from last year, all five of those are excellent.  In total he has featured on six White Stripes studio albums (at least four of those are incredible), three Raconteurs records (All good), and three Dead Weather records (all excellent) and appeared in an episode of the Muppets (brilliant obviously, although it would have been even if Jack hadn’t been in it).

Over and Over and Over – Jack White (2018, Third Man Records, Taken from ‘Boarding House Reach’)

Blue Orchid – White Stripes (2005, XL Records, Taken from ‘Get Behind Me Satan’)

Steady As She Goes – The Raconteurs (2006, Third Man Records, Taken from ‘Broken Boy Soldiers’)

Die by the Drop – The Dead Weather (2010, Third Man Records, Taken from ‘Sea of Cowards’)

Here is tomorrow’s lyrical hint…. I don’t care about spots on my apples

Nearly Perfect Albums – #56

Elephant – The White Stripes

There’s No Home for You Here – The White Stripes (2003, XL Records)

According to the press, who know about this sort of thing, ‘Elephant’ is the White Stripes’ ‘English Album’.  They of course highlight the cricket bat on the cover, the references to the Queen and cups of tea.  To some extent this is true.  Certainly, it was recorded in East London (and according to Jack White, for less than five grand and only used equipment that was built before 1963 and included no computers, then again he also said that Meg was his sister, when she almost certainly wasn’t).

Regardless of what it is, and it isn’t, ‘Elephant’ is a triumph.  It was the album that launched countless copycat bands, none of whom came anywhere close to matching that sound, that cacophony of wails, screeches, thuds and yelps that makes up ‘Elephant’.   The reason for this was clear, it was because back in the first half of the 00’s, the White Stripes were consistently magnificent, and ‘Elephant’ was the sound of an album where literally everything fell into place in the right order at the right time.

Of course, when I say everything I mean everything, from Meg’s basic cavegirl style drumming, to the noises that Jack White somehow managed to get out of his guitar.  Those noises range from the frankly seismic roar of ‘Seven Nation Army’ to the mangled blues rock of ‘Little Acorns’ via the guitars that sound like they have inhaled helium of ‘There’s No Home for you Here’ and the deep south stomp of ‘The Hardest Button to Button’.

Little Acorns – The White Stripes (2003, XL Records)

Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes (2003, XL Records)

The Hardest Button to Button – The White Stripes (2003, XL Records)

Of course, it’s not the just songs where the guitars are (satisfyingly) loud that are compelling.  ‘You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket’ for instance is an acoustic track, its just Jack and his battered old Blues guitar.  It would be one of the most romantic songs ever recorded if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a song all about Jack’s fear about his gal leaving him.  After all the histrionics that come before it (and to some extent after it) when it arrives it is like finding a blackcurrant Starburst in the middle of a packet of mint Mentos, unexpectedly brilliant.

You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket – The White Stripes (2003, XL Records)

Of course, that whole theme of old fashioned values rings (Jack’s mainly) through the whole album.  It wants to have been recorded back in the fifties when men where heroes and girls blushed prettily, its full of songs about sexual tension, thwarted romances and declarations of desire and we the record buying public lapped it up like dogs around a bowl of Guinness.

The White Stripes may have not quite turned out to be the saviours of rock music but when they got it right they were irresistible.  ‘Elephant’ was one of those occasions, it has everything, fury, drama, wit, charm, memorable hooks, killer riffs, choruses to die for, a neat cameo from Holly Golightly, everything.

It’s True We Love One Another – The White Stripes (2003, XL Recordings)

Retrospective Musical Naval Gazing – #13 (2003)

In 2003, I changed jobs, a sort of sideways promotion if that makes sense.  I walked into my new office on my first morning found my desk in the corner of the room and immediately made it my own space.  I had a relatively big cork board to stick things like wall planners and such like to ,but instead of boring corporate things like that I stuck up a big picture of Jarvis Cocker flicking the V’s at the camera after he was arrested for apparently assaulting Michael Jackson (in reality what happened, is that Jarvis fed up with the hero worshiping and media fawning over Jacko during his ‘overblown and egowanktastic’ performance of ‘Earth Song’ at the Brit Awards that Jarvis got on stage and wiggled his backside at the audience and Jacko’s people took exception to it).  Within a week of it being there I had been asked to take it down as it ‘gave the wrong impression’.

One person had complained apparently, not that it makes a great deal of difference but that person was overtly Christian and had a picture of Jesus on her pinboard and I said that I would remove Jarvis if they removed Jesus as I found that just as offensive.  I may have inflamed the situation by suggesting that Jarvis was far more relevant that Jesus but I held my ground.  An impasse developed alongside evil stares from across the room. 

The poster stayed up until October, and then in January 2004, the space was filled with the NME calendar – more of that tomorrow.

At the end of 2003, the White Stripes topped my tracks of the year for the second time in three years.  This time it was with their guitar slinging anthem ‘7 Nation Army’.  In the office Fantasy Football Championship I even named my team ‘The 7 Nation Army’ as it had players from 7 different countries in it.  I genuinely thought that I was being really clever until some smart arse with a sharp eye and an evener sharper pencil pointed out that there were eight nations in my team and rendered the whole joke meaningless.

Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes (2003, XL Recordings, Taken from ‘Elephant’)

Whilst The White Stripes may have made the best track of the year, they didn’t make the best album (as great ‘Elephant’ is). That was a one horse race that featured Dizzee Rascal, he turned up from the ‘estates of Bow’ brought with him a bunch of tunes that were in your face, delivered at 100mph, grime music that referenced Tony Blair, gangs and somehow managed to blend hip hop with theatrical operatic noises and not make it sound awful.  It made it a double first for the geniuses over at XL Recordings. ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’ came second on the track chart as well just beating Franz Ferdinand into third.

Fix Up, Look Sharp – Dizzee Rascal (2003, XL Recordings  Taken from ‘Boy In Da Corner’)

Darts of Pleasure – Franz Ferdinand (2003, Domino Records, Taken from ‘Franz Ferdinand’)

Elsewhere, my top ten contained these two belters at numbers five and six respectively.  The first one, remains one of the greatest indie ballads of all time (and according to the NME, the greatest indie first dance ever).  The second remains one of the few Indian language tracks to chart in the UK, and at the time hinted at a much anticipated bhangra fuelled summer.  Something that sadly never materialised.  It also samples Busta Rhymes and the theme from Knight Rider making it impossible to dislike.

Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2003, Interscope Records, Taken from ‘Fever To Tell’)

Mundian to Bach Ke – Panjabi MC (2003, Nachural Records, Taken from ‘Legalised’) – which if you want or need a translation means ‘Beware of the Boys’.  There is a Jay Z version of this as well, which sold over 10 million copies in the USA.

Retrospective Musical Naval Gazing – #11 (2001)

21 Seconds – So Solid Crew (2001, Relentless Records, Taken from ‘They Don’t Know’)

One of the things that sticks in my mind the most about 2001, was it was the year that first, The So Solid Crew and then secondly, Grime came to everyone’s attention.  This was not because the So Solid Crew were particularly good but because they brought with them a notoriety not seen since days of the 2 Live Crew.  Wherever they went moral panic seemed to follow them, largely fuelled by the right wing press who focussed on the fact that these upstarts came from inner city estates in London and had links to gang culture and the glorified guns and drugs.  Some of that was true.  It was true that the So Solid Crew grew up, formed and for a while lived on inner city estates in the Battersea area of London.  It was true that some of the crew (and remember more than 30 individual artists were at some point linked to the So Solid Crew) had links to some gangs and some of them had been in trouble with Da Babylon before, but did they glorify guns, drugs and gangs, no they didn’t.

What they glorified was highlighting struggles, prejudice, and deprivation.  They also brought attention to grime music, dragging it from the back street clubs of inner city London to the nations lounges, and with it a whole host of new acts, SJs, MCs and clubs emerged, some of whom would in the next few years become absolutely massive.  Despite all that So Solid Crew failed to make my Top Ten tracks of the year, because despite being dangerous to know, they were just about mediocre when it came to their musical output.

On the other side of the musical coin, whilst grime set it’s place at the table, two bands from the States had polished off the cake and were starting on the big cigars and were on the phone to the Pink Pussycat. Because at Numbers 1 and 2 respectively were where you would find easily the two best bands of the year, The White Stripes and The Strokes

Hotel Yorba – The White Stripes (2001, XL Recordings, Taken from ‘White Blood Cells’)

Last Nite – The Strokes (2001, Rough Trade Records, Taken from ‘Is This It?’)

If So Solid Crew brought grime to the masses then some of the credit for bringing garage music into people’s lounges in 2001 must surely go to Mike Skinner and The Streets.  In 2001 he burst on the scene with the lop sided smoke filled classic that is ‘Has It Come To This?’ and the subsequent ‘Original Pirate Material’ that followed it the following year saw an entire new audience opening up to garage music. 

Has It Come to This – The Streets (2001, 679 Records, Taken from ‘Origiinal Pirate Material’)

Another genre that was getting a new audience in 2001 was that of the so called Car Boot Techno genre that was coined about five years earlier by Bentley Rhythm Ace but was almost perfected in 2001 by The Avalanches (who sat at number six with ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’)

Frontier Psychiatrist – The Avalanches (2001, Modular Records, Taken from ‘Since I Left You’)

The rest of my top ten saw a familiar mixture of indie, dance and hip hop.  Kylie’s electroclash floorfiller ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ came in third, at five was ‘Juxtaposed With U’ by the Super Furry Animals, Gorillaz was at seven with ‘Clint Eastwood’ and at eight was this storming piece of hip hop brilliance.

Get Ur Freak On – Missy Elliot (2001, Elektra Records, Taken from ‘Miss E…So Addictive’)

Major League Music – #4 – Detroit Tigers

Put Your Hands Up for Detroit – Fedde Le Grand (2006, Flamingo Records)

Whenever Detroit’s baseball team, The Tigers, win a home game, ‘Put Your Hands Up For Detroit’ is pumped out across the stadium in celebration.  A song by a Dutch DJ that heavily samples another song by a Texan born DJ and not one second of it was made anywhere near Detroit.  Although saying that it’s a proper banger and you can see why they would play it.

Sadly for fans of Detroit they were almost as bad as the Royals last season so the song didn’t get as many outings as it deserved.  It’s been nearly forty years since Detroit won the World Series and in all honesty it could be forty more until they do it again.  Last week the Tigers played the Royals three times and beat them twice.  Meaning that Kansas are already bottom of their five team division – but clearly it’s a marathon not a sprint.

Musically Its impossible to talk about Detroit without mentioning Motown.  The influential label founded by Berry Gordy Jr in the fifties and there are literally hundreds of records that I could choose from.  Between 1961 and 1971 over 100 records on the Motown Label went Top Ten in the UK and the US, including records by Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes to name but a few but the first to get to number one was this.

Please Mr Postman – The Marvelettes (1961, Motown Records)

One last thing about Motown (although I genuinely might do an entire series on Motown Records later in the year) is that Berry Gordy Jr’s eighth and youngest child was responsible for this absolute monstrosity of a record, that sound you can hear at the end is Motown’s legacy hitching up its skirt and heading for the hills screaming.

Detroit isn’t just all about Motown Records, although that should be enough.  Its also home to Wayne Kramer and his jam kicking friends MC5, who pretty much invented garage rock and are of course most famous for this classic

Kick Out the Jams – MC5 (1969, Elektra Records)

More recently (and I accept that I am totally overlooking the Detroit Techno Boom) Detroit has spawned a host of excellent rockstars and rappers.  This chap for example

Godzilla – Eminem featuring Juice Wrld (2020, Interscope records) – which by the way boasts the world record for the fastest rapping ever.  In the third verse of this track, Eminem manages 300 words in 30 seconds.   Which is 295 more than I can rap in 30 seconds.

The Hotel Yorba can also be found in South West Detroit, I’m not sure if a hotel anymore but of course it was made famous by the current overlord of the Detroit music scene, Mr Jack White.

Hotel Yorba – The White Stripes (2001, XL Recordings)

And here is the previously unknown new (ish) band that I am selecting at random.  This week say hello to VVISIONSS – note the capitals folks, and according to the Internet they love cats, time travel and krautrock.   Which makes them sound pretty essential.  Although as usual, we will be judge of that. 

The River – VVISIONSS (2020, Self Released)

Next Week  –  Minnesota

The Never Ending Playlist – Week #6

29.  The Hardest Button to Button – The White Stripes (2003, XL Recordings, Taken from ‘Elephant’)

There was, for a while, very little that Jack White could do that was deemed wrong.  Everything he released seemed to be met with universal acclaim.  The NME once ran a two-page story on how “The very future of rock music was under threat” when he was involved in a car crash and quite badly cut his guitar playing hand.  They seriously did that.  The fact White was 27 years old (the famously unlucky age for rock stars) at the time almost sent the poor saps into a cataclysmic freefall.

This all occurred around the time of the release of ‘Elephant’, the fourth album by the White Stripes, which looked to propel The White Stripes from being huge to being stratospherically huge (and to be fair it did, thanks largely to ‘Seven Nation Army’).  Jack White had already been hailed as the saviour of rock music by the NME and they didn’t want to lose such a talent.  That’s fair enough I suppose, it is a ridiculously good record, this for example this is one of the best garage rock tracks of recent years. 

You Got Her In Your Pocket – White Stripes (2003, XL Recordings)

I constantly change my mind where Jack White is concerned.  On the one hand I think he is remarkably talented and think ‘Elephant’ is a tremendous album.  I admire his dedication to vinyl, production and his general commitment to music.  The fact that he has just opened a particularly amazing record shop in London as well (Third Man Records), only adds fuel to that. 

But on the other hand there is the ‘other stuff’. 

The pointless beefs he gets into with other musicians, the vicious assault he committed against the singer of the Von Bondies, the twatting around on stage, swigging from bottles of champagne and the general bellendness that seems to follow him about. 

‘The Hardest Button to Button’ was the third track to be released off of ‘Elephant’ and was backed with this

St Ides of March – The White Stripes (2003, XL Recordings)