Album Reviews

It seems strange that someone who doesn’t even want to be part of this generation has become the voice of it. Jack White could care less about reality TV, George Bush, or the Boston Red Sox. Jack lives in a bygone era where Orson Welles and Rita Heyworth are the new stars, and Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, and Dolly Parton represent the avant-garde.

If John Waters made an old west movie, Get Behind Me Satan would be the soundtrack; and Jack White would play himself. He wouldn’t even need to go to wardrobe-his own black suit, pork pie hat, and pasty skin almost glowing are perfect as he pounds out his pain on the piano beside the bar as cross-dressing cowboys and she-male call girls whoop it up.

After the guitar bombast behemoth Elephant it would have been easy to pump out Elephant II and keep the A&R wolves at bay, but just like Neil Young, and more recently, Radiohead and Nirvana, when superstardom went in for the cool embrace, it was greeted with the cold shoulder, and I’m sure Jack would rather be in that saloon than rubbing shoulders with Puff Daddy at the Grammys. But they don’t call it irony for nothing, and when these artists tried to put out albums that pop-culture would hate, they became classics instead.

Now I’m not saying Get Behind Me Satan will be standing alongside Tonight’s The Night, OK Computer, or In Utero in the “difficult” album sweepstakes, but repeated listening proves it deserves to be.

Just when we thought the minimalist arrangement of guitar, drums, and voice had reached its ultimate conclusion, The White Stripes come up with a whole new chapter to confound expectations. While they’ve added a few new weapons to their arsenal, the overriding cacophony of their past efforts has been left in favor of stark, spare arrangements that’ll leave you praying for the end of the world. Jack’s refusal to use computers or any modern recording techniques gives the album a feel and sound that it was recorded sixty years ago, yet has an immediacy and organic feel that few new rock albums approach.

Sure, the lead-off single "Blue Orchid," as well as "Red Rain" and "Instinct Blues" have all the expected fervor typical of The White Stripes of yore, but they have trouble finding their way amidst the tortured agony of the acoustic, mostly piano-driven numbers that dominate. The addition of triangle, bells, and marimba may not seem like a big deal, but the way they are worked into the songs adds a whole new dimension to the bands sound, helping to add to the childlike innocence Jack tries to invoke in his music. That he juxtaposes such dark lyrics with simplistic, almost nursery rhyme like melodies on many of the tracks makes for an eerie, at times uncomfortable, listening experience that makes your own troubles seem petty by comparison.

If you’re one of the few people who have never felt betrayed, lovelorn, and bitter, this album will make no sense at all to you, but if you’ve actually lived a little, the songs within Get Behind Me Satan will have you feeling the pain of your first crush and the agony of your last split like few albums before.

Get Behind Me Satan finds the Detroit duo at a crossroads, and while it may not have been what we wanted, it’s proving to be what we needed.