Robert Christgau's Music Criticism Blog - Expert Witness - MSN Music

Jack White/The White Stripes

White Man's Burden

By Xgau May 22, 2012 5:49AM

Jack White: Blunderbuss (Third Man/Columbia)

Two factors underlie the profitability of a lifelong conceptual art project devoted to woman-friendly roots-rock: the pop market's naked hunger for tune, which the conceptmaster respects as a roots-rock essential, and its recidivist hankering for blues-based guitar, which the conceptmaster reconstitutes more snazzily than his coequal Derek Trucks‑-who, you will note, does his most meaningful work in his uncle's band, and that includes the roots-rock corn he sows with the gifted blues musician he married. Trucks has more chops, but White has more audacity, and his nominal solo debut is as striking sonically as any album he's ever authorized. His respect for tune notwithstanding, however, its most fetching song by far is Rudy Toombs's "I'm Shakin'," covered in a version that resembles the Blasters' rocker far more than Little Willie John's shiftier original. I blame this shortfall on White's disregard for a roots-rock essential called groove. Carla Azar does have more jam than Meg White, but not enough. With hip-hop ever beyond him, maybe he should give Cindy Blackman a call. A MINUS

 

The White Stripes: Elephant (V2 '03)

Everybody else's favorite White Stripes album still isn't mine, but I admit I underrated it. This was because I sensed Jack White was the annoying neoprimitivist scold we now know him to be, but hadn't figured out how to process it, which is to ignore his content while giving it up to his formal imagination and command. The game changer here was what we'll call the "Blitzkrieg Bop" effect. When a riff turns into a stadium slam jam the way "Seven Nation Army" has, fools just hate it forever. Me, I lay my offering at the feet of the populist gods and tip my baseball cap to people a lot worse than Jack White. Gary Glitter, most prominently. Hell, Metallica. A MINUS

 

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142Comments
Che Vauche
May 25, 2012 4:22AM
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Sorry, off to Boulder Junction for two weeks. Turn the proceedings back over to my dearest and oldest friend - yes, I used to pull his pigtails in kindergarten - Herr Professor Xgau, who finds us all so, so, so "tedious" - but finds Comrade Pete Seeger so, so, so enthralling! Say goodnight, Irene, look like **** in those curlers.


Oh, puppy dogs: bet on Alpha to show at The Belmont - pedigree has both Secretariat and the Slew. I know someone who knows someone. Au revoir, les gens!


Copyright, 2012 / Puppymaster, Inc.

Che Vauche
May 25, 2012 4:19AM
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Sorry, off to Boulder Junction for two weeks. Turn the proceedings back over to my dearest and oldest friend - yes, I used to pull his pigtails in kindergarten - Herr Professor Xgau, who finds us all so, so, so "tedious" - but finds Comrade Pete Seeger so, so, so enthralling. Say goodnight, Irene, look like **** in those curlers.


Oh, puppy dogs: bet on Alpha to show at The Belmont - pedigree has both Secretariat and the Slew. I know someone who knows someone. Au revoir, les gens!


Copyright, 2012 / Puppymaster, Inc.

Jon LaFollette
May 24, 2012 11:29PM
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For all you jazz lovers out there, do yourself a favor and check out the latest Wes Montgomery offering titled "Echoes of Indiana Avenue." Released through his estate and produced by a collection of Indy Jazz producers and historians, little is known about the recordings, other than they were recorded sometime in 1958 and that they've been sitting in someone's attic waiting to be discovered for just as long, but one's thing's certain, it's easily on my top ten list for the year so far. 

It's not on Spotify (which is a shame), but when there is a will there is a way. 
jimmyCook
May 24, 2012 9:58PM
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Of course the baseball comment was funny.  Great that he donated all those baseballs to the Negro league.  Thank god for Canadians.

Speaking of Led Zep.  I saw a recreation concert in Newark a month ago.  It was a note for note performance of Physical Graffiti played in sequence.  Kind of like the faux Beatles I guess.  Anyway, it was bizarre and somewhat thrilling.  Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 70's, a lot of major bands would pass us up: Led Zep, Stones, Who, etc.  Had to travel to Cleveland if we wanted to see them.  Didn't have money for that so we had to settle for Yes, Tull, ELP and so on.  Thanks for not passing us up; and those guys were entertaining as hell.  Ok, so hearing a fake Led Zep was the closest I was going to get considering it's 2012.  It's a show and not a show. They are exacting with absolutely no embellishments. Close your eyes and you're listening to the album. So what are you watching? With sheet music in tow, these guys are playing it straight and I mean straight!  And since the album itself ends on a low point, well so does the show.  But hello, the encore of Dazed and Confused, Rock and Roll and Whole Lotta Love was great...anyone seen these kind of shows?  I can't say I loved it, Those Darlins at Maxwells...now that I loved...hard to divorce performance from the real thing...well, there are holograms flying around

jimmyCook
May 24, 2012 9:22PM
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Joe, it can't be wrong no matter the endurance.  And yeah he didn't review them that much but that says as much as anything. Celine Dion has endured and we certainly don't need to endorse that, but Carl has something to say? Would I listen if I read that tract? I would understand probably and love the language possibly, but no way am I listening.  Too much else for the earhole, damn! Dean, that Death Grips has got me going...difficult, loud, grating, bombastic....rock and roll
Jeff Hamilton (Ham340)
May 24, 2012 9:03PM
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Robert Plant is having a fascinating resurgence -- he works with terrific Austin musicians, and is shepherding the Smithsonian's forthcoming Bascom Lamar Lunsford project.  
Greg Morton (GMort)
May 24, 2012 8:34PM
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Liam's YouTube mention reminds me of something I wonder about occasionally here, how rarely Led Zeppelin gets any mention, favorable or not. Has their rose faded completely?
Peterike164
May 24, 2012 7:50PM
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"Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" is a must"

It ain't no Anvil! (The Story of Anvil)

PS - Our host has never reviewed an Anvil album, but I wonder if he's seen the movie?
Bradley Sroka
May 24, 2012 7:16PM
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Does this mean Mr. Joe Levy has watched the excellent documentary "Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage"? Made by metal doc super-duo Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn? Their "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" is a must. The Iron Maiden one is good, too. My wife even enjoyed it! She's not what you would call a metal fan. But those movies are good.
Ryan Maffei
May 24, 2012 6:07PM
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Quote Box: "Most interesting revelation: there are people who don't think "Birthday" is a great rock and roll record." -- incomparable intellect sharpsm

Of course, neither did John Lennon. In any case, ain't no "Helter Skelter". To quote that androgynous voice at the end of the Satellite Rides bonus disc: "that is the real thing!"
Liam Smith (DJ Protagonist)
May 24, 2012 6:04PM
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If we're still talking about Elephant, I think the Dean may have got it right the first time.  Certainly by comparison with White Blood Cells it lacks charm and joie d'esprit - it has nothing with as much fun or life as "Hotel Yorba" or "Fell in Love with a Girl".  "Seven Nation Army" just doesn't resonate for me.  But I'll give it a go in the car over the weekend and see how I feel.

And this may keep you amused: http://www.youtube.c​om/watch?v=5tF3kxLhk​U0

Curmudgeons banned the "Immigrant Song" kittens but some brave souls have put it up again: http://www.youtube.c​om/watch?v=ApxnAr6pR​t0

kevin john
May 24, 2012 5:52PM
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If you ever wondered what Loudon Wainwright might sound like covering "Afternoon Delight," get thee to Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up."
Peterike164
May 24, 2012 3:58PM
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I'm going to take this discussion of music criticism as an excuse to say that sometimes it all comes together in a way that blends music with biography with state-of-the-world observations and philosophy. And all that blather was just an excuse to say that if you've never read Xgau's longer form piece "Double Fantasy: Portrait of a Relationship" then you have missed out on a great piece of writing that encompasses all the things in my first sentence. For me it's the best thing he's ever written, which is not to say that I've read the Complete Works, because I ain't. But in any case, it's an amazing thing to read and you can find it here:

http://bit.ly/KuWk1M​

If the link don't work go to Xgau's site, look up the John Lennon section, scroll to the bottom and click on "Double Fantasy: The Ballad of John and Yoko."
JY49NY
May 24, 2012 3:51PM
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What about the voice of Geddy Lee?  How did it get so high? 
Greg Morton (GMort)
May 24, 2012 3:41PM
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New Rush due June 12. Already compared favorably to Tool. The line forms over there. Way over there.
Joe Levy
May 24, 2012 3:28PM
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Wait, didn't Xgau basically skip Rush? And isn't that -- at this point -- wrong, given their enduring blahblahblah and the way they've become a cultural yahyahyah? 

And doesn't Geddy Lee like baseball even more than Xgau? What about that? 

bradluen
May 24, 2012 3:12PM
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Another way of thinking about the issue: You can draw a simple hierarchy of movie criticism:

Mainstream opinion: IMDB posters
Elite opinion: Newspaper reviewers
Reaction to elite opinion: Writers for Film Comment and the like

You could also add reaction-to-the-reac​tion (maybe the remaining Paulettes) or something but this covers the bulk of movie criticism.

You could try to draw a similar hierarchy of music criticism:

Mainstream opinion: Fansites and fora
Elite opinion: The glossy mags
Reaction to elite opinion: Pitchfork and other high-traffic websites
Reaction to the reaction: ILX, the post-Poptimist Tumblr cliques, us maybe (or maybe you should move us up a level)

But this map misses a lot of what's interesting about music criticism. For one thing, it ignores genre, and I think genre has to come into any discussion of music crit very early[1]. There are genre-specialist movie critics, but the ones who are any good tend to be extremely marginalised.

A second thing is that the whole idea of a hierarchy doesn't really seem adequate. Pitchfork is a reaction to Rolling Stone in some sense, but the reaction is more "we are into stuff you're not into" than "you are wrong and you should die". For their part, Rolling Stone hasn't hesitated in giving props to Internet breakouts. Music criticism is just flatter than movie criticism, which I think helps music writers intellectually, but also softens the impact of critics on the portion of the public that might actually pay attention to what they're saying.

[1] Though it's interesting that you can see some structures like this emerging within genre criticism - within hip hop in particular.
bradluen
May 24, 2012 2:17PM
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A couple of things about aggregated scores. I think it's inevitable that as you get more experienced in a particular field, your consumer decisions will be shaped less by measures of consensus taste and more by individuals and institutions in tune with your peculiarities. I went through an obsessive foodie era in 2007-08 (coinciding almost exactly with a "between long-term relationships" era), starting off by checking out Yelp's top rated places, and ending up finding Yelp's aggregated rating essentially uncorrelated with my tastes.

On the other hand, some fields definitely lend themselves to consensus opinion/aggregated scores more than others do. In the fields I know about:

Averages matter: movies, food, video games, TV, pro wrestling
Averages don't matter much: music, books, art

By "averages matter" I don't mean that popular and critical opinion coincide. I mean that there are generally accepted measures of popular opinion (e.g. IMDB ratings) and of critical opinion (Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic scores), and these measures influence the decisions of many consumers (though usually far from a majority).

You could argue a few of these. There isn't a canonical number for TV critic consensus, but TV critics pretty much agree on everything anyway. Books and art certainly have capital-C Canons, but beyond the hallowed like Shakespeare and the Ninja Turtle Painters, people tend to just like what they like.

I think the major difference between the two categories is when opinion is less variable or more predictable, averages matter, and when it's more variable or less predictable, averages don't matter much. Given a person's Netflix and iTunes histories, I'd be more confident predicting how much they'd like The King's Speech than how much they'd like Blunderbuss (unless the White Stripes had a million plays or something).
Kenny Mostern
May 24, 2012 1:55PM
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Chris: Fcuk me for stupid too fast reading. I know better. Sorry.
Matt Rice
May 24, 2012 1:44PM
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Jeff, I just laughed really hard. Thank you. :D

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about the blogger

Robert Christgau

Starting in 1967, Robert Christgau has covered popular music for The Village Voice, Esquire, Blender, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He teaches in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, maintains a comprehensive website at robertchristgau.com, and has published five books based on his journalism. He has written for MSN Music since 2006.

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