White Stripes - Maximum

Started by bonanzataz, January 08, 2003, 09:27:16 PM

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Ultrahip

Get Behind Me Satan is absolutely great. Similar to their previous master albums but, if you can imagine it, more tropical. Which is to say, marimbas are used beautifully. And there's one song, 'Red Rain', that I think actually uses a bicycle bell, unless it's just some drumming equpiment that sounds like one.  I forsee yet more praise and accolades for The White Stripes.

modage

wow, i guess i feel differently.  i'll be curious to hear how everyone else feels then.  i think its okay but kind of a step backwards or sideways or just not as damn good as the others.  maybe some more listens, but so far i really dont even like it that much and they're like one of my favorite bands.  :shock:
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

Quote from: themodernage02so far i really dont even like it that much and they're like one of my favorite bands.  :shock:

Maybe you just expected more or something different than what you got from one of your favorite bands.  Mayhaps it'll grow on you.
"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

Pubrick

Quote from: Walrus Esq.
Quote from: themodernage02so far i really dont even like it that much and they're like one of my favorite bands.  :shock:

Maybe you just expected more or something different than what you got from one of your favorite bands.  Mayhaps it'll grow on you.
yeah, that's exactly what he just said.
under the paving stones.

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

Quote from: Pubrick
Quote from: Walrus Esq.
Quote from: themodernage02so far i really dont even like it that much and they're like one of my favorite bands.  :shock:

Maybe you just expected more or something different than what you got from one of your favorite bands.  Mayhaps it'll grow on you.
yeah, that's exactly what he just said.

/sarcasm
"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

brockly

the whites have done it again. this album is great! like their fist album, self titled, this one seems pretty shitty on the first spin, but really grows on you after a couple of listens. it doesnt quite have the sweep of white blood cells or elephant... in fact, its probably their weakest effort since their debut album, but its still fucking great. Forever For Her is one of their best songs, ever.

Stefen

Stop trying to be unique. This album sucks and now you do too. Aside from Lullabies To Paralyze, there has not been any GREAT albums yet this year.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Gamblour.

I heard one of the songs a while back, and it didn't make me want to kill myself. So that's a start.

Stefen, I'd say France the Mute was stellar.
WWPTAD?

Stefen

I thought so too Jamie, but I have a hard time listening to ftm now. I loved it for a few months but now I just can't listen to it. There is only so much I can take, ya know?
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

MacGuffin

Rocker Jack White, Model Karen Elson Marry

NEW YORK - Clearly, Jack White isn't brokenhearted over the recent marriage of ex-girlfriend Renee Zellweger. The White Stripes singer wed model Karen Elson on Wednesday in a canoe in the Amazon River in Brazil.

Chloe Walsh, a publicist for White, 29, confirmed Thursday that the singer-guitarist married Elson, a 25-year-old who has modeled for Prada and Banana Republic. She is also featured in the band's latest video, "Blue Orchid," a surreal clip which features snakes slithering over Elson.

The marriage and details regarding it were first reported by Us Weekly, though the story was not in its latest issue.

The service was conducted by a Shaman priest on a canoe in the Amazon basin. It was followed by a blessing by a Catholic priest at a cathedral in Manaus, Brazil.

Meg White, the drummer for the White Stripes, a blues-rock duo from Detroit, served as maid of honor. Though she and White have claimed to be siblings, court records have suggested they were married for four years before divorcing in 2000.

Whether it's White's first marriage or not, it is the first for Elson.

White and Zellweger met during the filming of the 2003 movie "Cold Mountain" and dated until late 2004. The actress married country music star Kenny Chesney May 9 in a Caribbean island ceremony.

White won a Grammy earlier this year for best country collaboration with country legend Loretta Lynn. He produced her 2004 album, "Van Lear Rose," which also won for best country album.

White's marriage comes as the White Stripes release their fifth full-length, "Get Behind Me Satan," on Tuesday.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

Quote from: Stefen Posts DrunkerStop trying to be unique. This album sucks and now you do too. Aside from Lullabies To Paralyze, there has not been any GREAT albums yet this year.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Ben Folds - Sons for Silverman

Mars Volta - Frances the Mute

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth

Those are just the first that come to mind as GREAT albums that came out this year.

I'm sure people may disagree with me, but this seems like a good year for music.
"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

MacGuffin

Little White truths
Inspired and determined, Jack White gets personal, crafting a White Stripes CD so surprising it recalls the Beatles' creative leap on 'Rubber Soul.' Here's how. By Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer



The White Stripes' Jack White is ready for a break as he slips behind the wheel of his vintage four-seat Thunderbird and switches on the ignition. White has been working feverishly on a new album, and he is just days away from starting a grueling world tour.

The CD, "Get Behind Me Satan," is a a daring creative advance in which he and drummer Meg White have added layers of imagination and depth to what was an already thrilling sound.

Despite all the gloom surrounding the record industry about the way bottom-line consciousness at major labels is stifling creativity, White shows how a fiercely independent artist can still make music that is both cutting-edge and commercial. The Stripes' last album, 2003's "Elephant," sold 4 million copies worldwide and won an album of the year nomination in the Grammys.

In "Satan," which will be released Tuesday on Third Man/V2 Records, White sets aside his signature blistering guitar lines on most of the tracks. Marimbas dominate one song, grand piano and/or drums highlight others, and he mixes them in dazzlingly original ways.

The subject matter is more personal — anxious, even desperate looks at conflicts between innocence and morality on one side and compromise and betrayal on the other. Even in some of the album's gentlest moments, a guitar suddenly cuts through like a knife through a curtain. "It's probably the most cathartic record I've ever made," White says.

The creative leap in "Satan" is, in its way, reminiscent of the breakthrough the Beatles made in "Rubber Soul," the album that not only introduced more adult themes to the Beatles' compositions (the disarming vulnerability of "In My Life") but also new instrumental textures (mysterious sitar touches in the sophisticated "Norwegian Wood").

For all the assurance of the new album, however, the "Satan" recording sessions left even the normally workaholic White drained.

"It was the first album that was really hard to make," the singer-songwriter says. "It wasn't because we needed inspiration or help creatively. I was writing songs every day, which is unusual for me. I probably have 35 done. The problem was outside things."

The tape machine kept breaking, microphones often went on the blink, water dripped from the ceiling. You can even hear part of Meg's drum kit tumble over at the end of one song. "Torture," White sums it up. "It got to the point where I was almost feeling, 'Let's forget it. I can't take it anymore.' "

Despite the frustrations, the Stripes recorded the album in just over a week in March for under $10,000. (It's not uncommon for major label bands to take months and spend $1 million in the process.)

And White hasn't let up. He's worked nonstop on every detail of the album's launch, including planning a tour that would take the duo to Mexico, Chile, Russia, Poland and Greece before the U.S. leg, which includes Aug. 15-18 dates at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

That's why a ride in the Thunderbird must seem especially inviting on this rainy afternoon. He wants a couple of double cheeseburgers and onion rings from his favorite bar, about 45 minutes away in Dearborn.

Everything about his car, from the upholstery to the tinny radio, is original — except for the supercharged engine features that make the car's roar as loud as a jet as White pulls into the street.

By the time he hits the freeway, the noise from under the hood makes the car feel as if it's going 120 miles an hour, though the speedometer reads a prudent 65.

The car skids noticeably when he encounters a sudden traffic tie-up on the wet streets.

"Sorry about that," he says, smiling. "I should have told you, this car's got '90s power and '50s brakes. "

The same could be said about Jack White.

A state of readiness

"I've been working all night on the artwork for the album," White, 29, says by way of greeting as he walks down the stairs of his elegant turn-of-the-last-century home.

On stage, he plays guitar and sings with an immediacy that makes him seem dangerously near imploding. And even at home, his mind seems amped up, as if he's about to excuse himself at any minute and race back to his home studio to put his latest thoughts on tape.

The house documents his endless fascinations. The main floor spills over with a crazy quilt of passions and projects — from religious statues (he thought of studying for the priesthood as a teenager) to pinball machines, animal heads on the wall and a drum kit in the hall.

White leads a guest to a back room where the Stripes recorded "Satan." The room is so crowded that White can barely make his way past the guitar cases and microphone cords to show where he did his vocals.

"A formal studio would have killed this record," the 6-foot-2 musician says. "People didn't used to have enough money to do more than one or two takes, so they would put everything into each one.

"That's what created the urgency in so many of those records. It felt like the singer's life was on the line. Now you have millions of dollars of technology to help you in the studio, but it doesn't help at all."

What does help are things like an obsession with a former film star.

White makes his way back to the living room and sits in a chair next to a photo of Rita Hayworth.

"I've been fascinated with her for years," he says. "I used to have a picture of her in my van when I had my upholstery shop. When I was making this record, I had so many images flying through my head, I had to get centered on something. I needed an anchor, and she became it.

"She was a metaphor for everything I could think of. She was a beauty, a love goddess. The red hair, the innocence, the fact she lost all her memory with Alzheimer's. She was a pinup, but I heard she never cared about any of the photos she took."

Hayworth is one of the central characters in "Take, Take, Take," a centerpiece of the new album. It's a playful but telling story set in a seedy bar where a star-struck fan meets the seductive actress. The fan keeps asking more of Hayworth — a better look, an autograph, a photo — declaring each time, "That's all that I needed."

Nothing, of course, is enough for the fan — reflecting both the emptiness of pursuing false values and the way fame can seem like a cage for the one being pursued.

For years, White insisted he was writing about other people. His own life, he said again and again, was too boring.

He can't make that claim now.

There was a childlike innocence to much of the Stripes' music and even their red-and-white peppermint outfits. But the new songs are more complex, more wary, more revealing — as White struggles, sometimes with biblical imagery, over classic matters of integrity, honor and temptation. "I don't need any of your pity," he snarls in one tune. "I've got plenty of my own."

Elsewhere in "Satan," White sings, either in a frenzied falsetto or wounded whisper, about spoiled innocence, in the exotic, guitar-driven "Blue Orchid"; the bruising battlefield of romance, in the achingly beautiful "Forever for Her (Is Over for Me)"; and dangerous options, in the bittersweet "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)."

In singing about betrayal and rejection, he's not exempting himself from guilt. There are times in the album when he could be alluding to his own misdeeds as easily as someone else's.

New looks come with this new terrain. On the album cover, he, especially, could be a jaded actor from costume dramas of '40s or '50s movies. Tyrone Power meets Hayworth?

"Everything we do, from Meg's hairdo down to my guitar strap, is just an attempt to get you to listen to the story in the songs, even if it takes a while to understand the story," he says.

"You might listen to 'My Doorbell,' for instance, because it's catchy, then six months later something may happen to you where you feel like the character in the song and relate to it in a different way.

"When I started singing it, the song was kind of lighthearted — 'I'm thinking about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it, when you gonna ring it?' — but then it became something more. You can tell a lot about people by when they come around and when they don't. Is it out of friendship or do they want something?"

A transfer of tension

White talks about the new album with the intensity of the music itself. You sense that the turmoil and complexities in the songs didn't end when he wrote them down. The tension is in the music because the tension is in him.

As White puts more of himself into his music, though, he's taking himself further from the record marketing machine. He plans to do only three formal interviews to promote the new album.

"I'm not sure the record company is happy about that," he says. "The theory is that if you do 700 interviews rather than 10, you will sell more records, and the more time you spend at radio stations, the more they will play your record. Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it's best to just use all that time to make better records."

Though the Stripes were on the cover of virtually every rock magazine on the planet after the success of "Elephant" in 2003, White has kept a low profile since. Even while dating Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger, whom he met on the set of "Cold Mountain," he avoided joining the parade of celebrity regulars in People and Us Weekly.

"I hate that celebrity stuff," he says. "It trivializes everything."

Born John Gillis, White is so quiet about his personal life that fans long thought Meg was his sister — until reporters in Detroit learned that, although now divorced, the couple had been married for a while in the '90s and he had adopted Meg's last name.

The bond between them is obvious from the way they speak of each other during the interview.

Meg's so shy that it's probably a relief that he does all the talking. She does, however, respond quickly when asked if she remembers the first time she saw White perform in a club.

"The thing that struck me the most was that he was fearless," she says softly, sitting across from him in the living room. "He wasn't trying to be whoever was popular at the time on the radio. He was unique, and that's what he wanted to be. And he's never changed."

Meg is an elementary drummer, but her basic approach adds a warmth that balances nicely the torrential fury that White often injects.

"I hated it when we started getting popular and there was this round of 'Meg sucks' or that she was a 'horrible drummer,' " he says, looking over at her. "Those people couldn't be more ignorant. She brings a childlike quality to the music, an innocence, which is perfect for what we do."

White is so driven that he produced last year's acclaimed Loretta Lynn album and he has been dividing his time lately between the Stripes and another band he has formed with fellow Detroit singer-songwriter Brendan Benson. "Brendan is a lot more song craftsman," he says toward the end of the interview. "I'm more emotional and from the hip. It's an interesting contrast."

Rumors of that other band have led to speculation that "Satan" would be the final White Stripes album, but there is something about the partnership with Meg that White seems to prize too much to let it go.

"I don't know," he says of the future. "On one hand, I'd be shocked if we were still making records in 10 years. In a lot of ways, rock 'n' roll is for the young. There's also so many other things going through my head — bluegrass, blues, country. Then again I see the Stones and I am really impressed they are expressing their rock 'n' roll attitudes at their age. That's not easy to do."

Whatever his musical path, White is unlikely to temper his vision, which is rooted in the blues and country musicians who laid the foundation for rock 'n' roll in the '40s and '50s. In recordings by artists as varied as Blind Willie McTell and Hank Williams, White, who was raised in a lower-middle-class area of Detroit, found a raw emotional honesty that was far more vital than the commercial trends of his youth. The music gave him not only a sense of self-identity but also a confidence in his own future. He guards that rawness and purity fiercely.

"Anytime I have any question about what decision to make," he says, "I just ask myself, 'Why am I doing this? Why did I want to start making music?'

"The answer was the music gave me a reason to hold my head high at a time little else did, and that's important. Any time you forget that principle is important in what you do, just turn on MTV and see all the things that can go wrong with a band and its music. Nothing, whether it's more sales or getting your picture in more magazines, is worth more than being able to hold your head high."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Stefen

I've been listening to the new album alot lately and it's really really growing on me. Each new listen is better than the last. I take back everything I said earlier, this album is really fantastic and getting better.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

noyes

i absolutely love Get Behind Me Satan. i don't really think it's a step backward or sideways or even forward. it's more like a jump upward. the use of all the various tropical instuments (conga drums, marimbas, etc) gives a nice feel and a new sound, yet the same old sound all at once. this quote from amazon.com is the perfect example of the misunderstanding, or misconception rather, of what makes this record so great, and the reason why people that aren't into the whole mainstream (if you can call it mainstream) side of the white stripes can listen to and enjoy this more experimental, in the most poppiest sense, record, whose trail started with the hintingly eclectic Elephant.

"I bought the album today after I read Rolling Stone's rave review. I also admire their music. After nearly listening to the entire album, I shut it off. I was very disappointed in their latest effort. It sounds more of an experimental album than the tunes that made them huge."

for one, and as a white stripes fan, i enjoy this record immensely and i've only heard four songs so far. a folky little song like "As Ugly as I Seem", with its reminiscence to Bert Jansch, surprises me with a little jig of a acoustic guitar riff. and a song like "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)" which left me smiling by 28 seconds in. this is the record a person who doesn't like the white stripes, who has more of a generally eclectic taste, would love. it's a simple little album, full of so many little pockets and sounds.
multiple listens might just be mandatory, if not only to get you to open your eyes (and ears) wider.

-mg
south america's my name.

Pubrick

under the paving stones.