1/23/13: The White Stripes: De Stijl

I want to emphasize again the difference between the White Stripes and a typical Detroit garage rock band, a difference which “De Stijl” epitomizes.  A typical Detroit garage rock band rages at you all night with thrashing electric guitars.  The White Stripes, on “De Stijl,” employ pianos, harmonicas, electric fiddles, and other soothing sounds.  A TDGRB writes only about sex and drugs.  The White Stripes, on “De Stijl,” write about school, and birds, and domestic bliss.  ATDGRB pretty much has one mood and one style.  The White Stripes, on “De Stijl,” offer more styles than their already varied debut, ranging from slide-guitar jams (“Little Bird”) to country (“Your Southern Can is Mine”) to pop (“Apple Blossom”) to Led-Zeppelin-ish-stomp (“Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me”) to balladry (“Sister Do Your Know My Name,” “A Boy’s Best Friend”).

De Stijl is a brave record.  It’s soul-baring and listenable and, often, (gasp) gentle.  It shows the breadth of Jack White’s record collection, his willingness to absorb a huge sum of influences from across the musical map.  And though it’s a very, very simple record, maybe moreso than the debut, it shows an increasing amount of ambition.

First song, “Your Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)": the best melody Jack's constructed yet.  It helps that the man has discovered a new voice for himself, a sincere and unaffected tenor that he uses for much of De Stijl and White Blood Cells (and would forget about once he became a big flashy rock star).  It gives that "this feeling's still GON-NA / Linger onnn" hook a nice, soft punch, and goes great with a crunchy guitar riff.

What else?  The whole record is full of folksy but mostly non-whimsical melodies, sung well, played with varying amounts of distortion.  The cover of "Death Letter" is one of the great White Stripes songs, turning a classic Son House number into a non-sleazy-but-plenty-slidey dance jam.  (This is how you play a guitar... How does Jack get such a thick, booty-shake-inducing sound with just Meg-- read, no bass-- to back him up?)

So I guess what really gets me about De Stijl is how it's a rock album, no question, just one that has very little to do with "cock."  It makes you move and bob your head and occasionally sit and meditate without filling your head with thoughts about what a worthless, slimy, perverted, semi-misogynist piece of shit you and every other man in the world is.  (AC/DC have always been better at making me feel this way than, say, Bikini Kill.)