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The White Stripes - White Blood Cells

The White Stripes are a duo from Detroit: Jack White on guitar and vocals, Meg White on drums. White Blood Cells (released in July) is their third release on the Sympathy For The Record Industry label, following their 1999 self-titled album and 2000's De Stijl. A peppermint candy derived red-and-white color scheme unites the design of all three CD covers, the Whites' outfits, and their web site. The Whites have played some myth-making games with the press, insisting that they are brother and sister; other sources reveal that Meg and Jack are ex-spouses.

White Blood Cells is rooted in blues-rock tradition, lo-fi and unpretentious, untouched by sampling or breakbeats.  A sounds-like-one-take indie ethic pervades the disc, but there are styles (and transparent influences) aplenty, and Jack White's earnest vocals morph to fit the style of each track. There's a roadhouse twang in the stomping "Hotel Yorba." Clocking in at one minute fifty seconds, the post-punk "Fell in Love With a Girl" sounds like a lost Pete Shelley/Buzzcocks demo. "The Union Forever," its lyrics inspired by Citizen Kane, is tempo-shifting garage psychedelia, with singing evocative of Pixies-era Frank Black. "I Think I Smell a Rat" has a grungy flamenco urgency; you can imagine the Stripes with roses in their teeth (red and white ones, of course) as they perform it.

The song I like the best on White Blood Cells is the gentlest. "We're Going to Be Friends" is a candy-sweet acoustic ode to schoolage palhood; it's smart about the world of children, and utterly beguiling. Fitting that the most childlike song on the album most points to the band's burgeoning maturity. 

— Fred Wheaton

In 1993, the same year Iggy Pop released American Caesar, a friend and I self-published a comic book. Iggy asked for letters in the liner notes so we sent a copy of our book. A couple of months later, we received a response straight from the man himself, handwritten on a small piece of pink stationery, that began: "You guys, I loved the fucking comic!" I relate this story as a way of clarifying for what follows: Iggy, I hate the fucking CD. How much farther into self-parody are you going to sink?

Pop's last album, Avenue B, was his admitted try to record a more mature album, full of introspection and more depth than he usually attempts. But based on the image he has had for three decades, no one could take it seriously. The critics savaged it. On Beat 'Em Up, Pop has returned to the punk and metal roots that made him famous. Unfortunately, this can't be taken seriously either. The guitar riffs and bass lines are straight out of Heavy Metal 101 and Iggy relies far too much on speaking his lines than singing them, a technique which has never worked well for him. The outrage at the system he tries to express falls flat now that he is a part of that system instead of an unknown failure. Of course, Pop has never been the critics' darling. The albums that we now consider classics were panned or ignored outright when they first came out. Maybe in 20 years, Beat 'Em Up will be a classic as well. In the meantime, I'm going to go listen to Raw Power and remind myself why I like Iggy in the first place. (Virgin)

— Wayne Wise

(Reprinted from In Pittsburgh Weekly, 08/15/01, by permission of the author.)