Jack White: And The White Stripes (eBook)

Every Album, Every Song

Ben L. Connor (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
160 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-78952-492-5 (ISBN)

Infos

The White Stripes were one of the breakout bands of the early 2000s 'rock revival' and reintroduced a sense of mystery and panache to the staid indie rock scene of the era. But that was only the beginning for singer-guitarist Jack White. From his humble origins in the fabled Detroit garage rock scene to his ongoing solo career, via The White Stripes and his other bands - The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather - Jack White has forged an extensive and eclectic body of work.
Now, as the head of his own record label, he has achieved what most musicians dream of: the freedom to follow his idiosyncratic muse where it takes him, regardless of the whims of the record industry or popular taste. His music takes in a variety of quirky styles, but he remains connected to the traditions of American roots music.
This is the first book that takes in the entire scope of Jack White's career: his bands, his solo work and his music with other artists. By going through his discography track-by-track, this book will argue that Jack White is one of the great artists of the modern age. Perhaps, in fact, the last great rock star.

Ben L. Connor wrote Pearl Jam On Track for Sonicbond, and is a freelance writer who also works as a teacher of Psychology and Sociology. He has spent over 30 years studying music and culture. He has written teaching curricula for the study of the media and popular culture and presented seminars on the impact of the internet on fandoms. In his spare time, Ben enjoys writing fiction and movie reviews, as well as collecting music books and magazines, particularly those concerning the 1990s alternative rock scene. He lives in Canberra, Australia.

Textauszug

Introduction

Who is the last great rock star?

This is a question worth asking, because rock – guitar-based music made by artists who write their own material and play their own instruments, in the tradition harking back to blues, country, and folk music – is no longer the youth-driven, zeitgeist-defining force it once was. Popular music’s modern superstars (Beyonce, Drake, Taylor Swift) come from the worlds of R&B, hip-hop and pop-country – not from the world of rock.

This is why I propose that Jack White might be the last great rock star. He is a larger-than-life trend-setting iconoclast, who writes, sings and plays his own material. From his breakthrough band The White Stripes, through his work with The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, to his current solo career, he has amassed a sprawling discography that runs the full range of rock ‘n’ roll styles and sounds. Along the way, he accumulated significant sales, critical acclaim and a dedicated fanbase. Now, as the head of his own record label, he is able to sustain his career outside the mercenary demands of the music industry. This is all the more remarkable, considering he began in a two-piece garage blues band. Of course, alongside those achievements, he has garnered a reputation as a musical Luddite, who paradoxically champions the ‘purity’ of older musical styles and technologies, while being obsessed with his persona and aesthetics. But that is just like a rock star: they should be larger-than-life figures.

In this book, I will be going through Jack White’s discography album by album, track by track, in chronological order. All non-album songs – singles, B-sides, soundtrack contributions, etc. – I will cover in the ‘Non-Album Tracks, B-Sides And Rarities’ section after the main albums. I will also briefly cover Jack’s appearances on other artist’s songs and his production work. Jack is comparable to Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, in that while he rose to fame with an identifiable sound and persona, he challenged himself to try different genres and hybrid sounds, and his collaborations were an important aspect of his creative development.

This book is not a complete discography, so I will not be covering every edition of every Jack White album or single. That would take a whole other book! This is also not a biography, so I will not be covering Jack’s personal history in detail. Jack is not a confessional singer-songwriter in the vein of Joni Mitchell or Stevie Nicks, where their music is a thinly veiled account of their private life. He is more in the vein of Neil Young or Patti Smith, using extended metaphors and fictional scenarios to convey broader universal truths. But there is a lot to say about Jack’s personal philosophies and how they’re reflected in his music, so we need to first explore where he came from and the musical forces that shaped him …

Jack White was born John Anthony Gillis on 9 July 1975. Given his penchant for self-mythologising, it would be fun to say he was born in a remote log cabin while thunder rolled outside and a two-headed calf was born in the nearby cemetery. But no, he was born and raised in Southwest Detroit. But in a way, that itself was prophetic, for there are few cities in America with as storied a musical history as Detroit.

On the one hand, Detroit was home to artists such as The Stooges, The MC5, Grand Funk Railroad and the original Alice Cooper band, who made messy, atavistic rock ‘n’ roll that laid the foundations for punk and metal. On the other hand, Detroit was frequently at the cutting edge of popular music, from the world-conquering assembly-line production process of Berry Gordy’s Motown Records to the cosmic funk-rock hybrid of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic project and the trendsetting Detroit techno sound of the 1980s. And before all this, of course, was the original blues boogie man John Lee Hooker.

Detroit’s musical eclecticism reflects its turbulent history. It was nicknamed ‘Motor City’ because it is where the major American car companies built their manufacturing plants. The city’s rapid growth led to a population boom, with a particularly large Black community. But as the American auto industry collapsed, the city declined, and this intergenerational trauma left deep scars on the people. Among the more dramatic shifts, the more well-off white families fled to the suburbs, and so between the 1950s and the 1990s, the city changed from two-thirds white to 80% Black. It was into this arena that Jack White was born.

Jack’s family was a large working-class Catholic brood. As the youngest of ten children – and likely unplanned – Jack had the feeling he was something of an afterthought. He had to accept every hand-me-down you can think of – clothes, toys, etc. This likely contributed to his ethos of taking what little you have and making the most of it. He briefly considered joining the priesthood or the military because it offered structure and regimen. He admired martyrs and saints for their dedication and sacrifice, and this fed into his work ethic. When he began to make music of his own, he started on the drums, a punishing instrument to learn.

At 16, Jack began an apprenticeship with local upholster Brian Muldoon. Muldoon furthered Jack’s musical education by introducing him to underground garage blues artists. Jack and Muldoon began to jam together in a band called The Upholsters, but just as important was his upholstery training. Early on, Jack liked to strip his music down to the bare essentials, and then play as loudly and wildly as possible – like taking an old piece of furniture and making it seem new again.

Jack was an avid music historian, buying armfuls of vinyl records from local stores. This put him at odds with his peers at Cass Technical High School. As he told Mojo: ‘The school was Mexican and Black and they were all into rap and house music, which I couldn’t stand’. That led to some tension, but also a healthy respect for Black music. Eventually, he was led to classic blues artists like Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and Charley Patton. He valorised artists who made music of great feeling and power with relatively simple playing and production. He found a copy of The Stooges’ blistering 1970 album Fun House in the trash and fell in love with it. Other albums he admired were The Modern Lover’s self-titled debut and The Gun Club’s Fire Of Love. In terms of local bands, he especially loved The Gories. These garage rockers were a band out of time in their 80s/90s heyday, destined for obscurity, but serving as a bridge between Detroit’s past and its future.

At this juncture, it might be helpful to define what ‘garage rock’ is. That is not easy to do, as unlike other rock subgenres, such as punk, prog, grunge, or hair metal, garage rock is not tied to a particular time, place or subculture. What defines garage rock is an ethos of simplicity and single-mindedness: rudimentary instrumentation and unpolished vocals, short, punchy songs, and no pretentious interest in ‘high art’. The myth of garage rock is that it is closest to the ‘pure’ rock ‘n’ roll that only really exists in the minds of rock historians: music made for the love of making music, by working-class heroes whose passion and energy counted more than their talent or songwriting ability.

By the 1990s, there was a thriving, if insular, Detroit garage rock scene. The members of these bands all knew each other and played together, resulting in a febrile community of like-minded iconoclasts. These musicians were also crate diggers, bonding over rediscovered classics and forgotten obscurities. It was a point of pride for Detroit’s garage rock scene that they made music for themselves and a small group of fans, the rest of the world be damned.

After graduating high school, Jack became the drummer for local band Goober & The Peas. They flitted between garage rockabilly and camp country cabaret, modelling for Jack how to transcend genre barriers in a constructive way. Their sparkly outfits also showed him the importance – and the fun – of thoughtful presentation. Jack joined the band 2-Star Tabernacle, sharing the singing, songwriting and guitar-playing duties with Dan Miller. After leaving them, he joined the hotly-tipped The Go for one album. None of these bands provided the right environment for Jack to express himself. For that, he would need a special ingredient...

Megan Martha White was born on 9 December 1974 and she grew up in Grosse Point, a more affluent middle-class suburb of Detroit. She and Jack were married on 21 September 1996. He took her surname, an unconventional gesture to be sure, but the resulting stage name was appropriate for his new band. Six months into their marriage, Meg asked to play Jack’s drums, and the two performed David Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’ together. This gave Jack an idea for a band, so they set up their instruments in their attic and proceeded to write songs.

Jack had The White Stripes planned out conceptually before they even recorded a note. Jack said to Mojo in 2002:

When we started the band, it was just some way of getting back to childhood without it being a comedy act. It was about how kids look at things. There’s a sense of humour that is deeply buried under everything. I kind of like it if people saw us and, just halfway through the steps, started laughing.

The imaginary backstory of the band is that a brother...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.12.2025
• Reihe/Serie: On Track
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik ► Musikgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik ► Pop / Rock
• Schlagworte: Meg White
• ISBN-10: 1-78952-492-X / 178952492X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78952-492-5 / 9781789524925