Filmmaker Francois Truffaut once said, "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am
Filmmaker Francois Truffaut once said, "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between; I am not interested in all those films that do not pulse."
The same sentiment can easily be applied to recordmaking. A lot of major-label albums are technically proficient and highly polished, but they don't got that pulse — the feeling that real live human beings are trying to say something artistically. It's the main reason why certain albums just do it for me. In Utero, The Beatles, anything by the Eels or Sonic Youth — their inspiration may lag at times, but they always retain a tight connection to our central nervous system. They bump and slam around — they seem to be actively working through emotional and musical uncertainties as we listen — and they surprise us with their unpredictable humanity.
It's a clichéd story in the music business: The really talented, unique band starts out on a cheap-o label, impresses the big boys, gets embraced by the mainstream, and then contentedly lets its rough, interesting edges get filed down on the way to big success. That cliché, while not always true, recalls Truffaut's point — by making the product more universally acceptable, its pulse fades away. The vitality is gone.
If you subscribe to this way of thinking, the White Stripes are probably tailor-made for you. On their third — and most acclaimed — indie record, White Blood Cells, the Stripes articulate many themes and show a firm grasp of punk-folk essentials. But most importantly, they embody Truffaut's philosophy. Like no band in recent memory, the White Stripes radiate the joy of making music. In case you were worried that great independently released records weren't still around, White Blood Cells ought to allay your fears. With its overflowing enthusiasm, the record reconnects you with your secret desire to chuck it all, form a band, and just blast out song after song, whether they're good or not.
The White Stripes are two people — Jack and Meg White, who are brother and sister. (Or, depending on which source you believe, a formerly married couple.) She plays drums; he sings, plays guitar, pounds the piano. Other than a co-mixer, an engineer, and a dude to master the damn thing, White Blood Cells is a product solely of the Whites. Produced by Jack, the album rushes along over 16 songs in around 40 minutes.
It's so good that even the sophomoric, not-ready-for-primetime schtick works in its favor, most of the time. The album boasts a dopey cover that has an equally dopey punchline inside. A few of the tracks suffer from indie-rock posturing, and the album's overall lo-fi production strategy allows the weaker moments to linger awkwardly, reeking in the corner. And yet it doesn't matter. Like 69 Love Songs or any OutKast disc, the dull spots seem more like eager misfires and less like confirmation of artistic mediocrity. It's like watching a standup on a really great night. Yeah, one joke may stink — but wait 'til the next one. Without a trace of arrogance, White Blood Cells buzzes with an exuberance and momentum that carries you across its manageable length. The next song may be a wistful acoustic ballad; the next song may be a fuzz rocker that steals its riff from Black Sabbath. Whatever, it feels alive — no matter how morose the song, it sounds like they had a blast making it.
But before we go on, let's draw a crucial distinction between vitality and rank amateurism. Lacking the money and care of a professional, big-budget studio, some indie bands cling to the raw, immediate, sludgy sound that cheap production gives them as a mark of their truthfulness. ("We're not hiding anything," they seem to be saying. "Please enjoy our warts, for our warts are us.") Unfortunately, underground rock fans get caught up in this attitude — so much so that it outweighs any consideration of the actual songs' merits. Because of this, the DIY spirit is alive and well in the $3 used-record bins, where crummy below-the-radar thrash bands and Pavement wannabes slam away on their instruments in the hopes that brilliance and/or credibility and/or truth will somehow magically appear.
But songs do matter, and the best of White Blood Cells proves it. (A distinct personality don't hurt, either.) The White Stripes, who can pull off an unnerving, abrasive instrumental on the same album they solemnly dedicate to Loretta Lynn, are touched by an outsider's spirit while maintaining an open-armed inclusiveness. Scott Litt or Jeff Lynne could have produced these songs, and that feeling would have remained, no matter how big a string section they added to the mix.
Lyrically, Jack has an oft-kilter, elusive style. Rather than sketching narrative tales or hiding behind artful metaphors and puzzle phrases, he simply cuts into his characters' lives at an important moment — and then gets out before we can get a handle on who they really are. In the wrong hands, this sly hinting is infuriating. With Jack, though, it's a lot of fun; like Stephen Malkmus, he achieves a sort of quirky universalism. The brittle uncertainty of a new friendship on the first day of grade school resonates through "We're Going to be Friends." The menacing elements inhabiting "I Think I Smell a Rat" — misbehaving kids, naïve parents, a paranoid narrator, and a baseball bat — are personified in Jack's amped guitar and Meg's controlled drumming.
Pavement, another band who knew something about the joy of music, left one valuable lesson as its great legacy, especially on their lo-fi testament Slanted and Enchanted. There are no rules, they gloated, so be bold and be inventive — try it for the hell of it. A major corporation ain't footin' the bill, so do what you want — especially if you couldn't get away with it anywhere else. White Blood Cells is liberated by this principle; it's where it gets its pulse.
But, crafty as he was, Malkmus could be a real smart-ass — only on the later, better Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain did he fully graft his warmth onto his gargantuan clever streak. Jack and Meg don't have his quicksilver genius — they're not so much clever as they are heartfelt — and so the risks they take are more centered on the song's emotional core. From the guitar-distortion opener, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," to the album closing "This Protector," a piano-centered study of foreboding, you never forget that two people are dreaming up this music. Jack's guitars have a full-bodied, right-next-door quality that jumps out of the speakers. In comparison, Meg's forceful playing simply begs you to drum along with her at home. The lyrics don't hide behind affectations, and the instruments don't either.
Without pretension or profound ideas, the Whites bring us back to what probably got us into rock music in the first place. Yeah, the music was anti-establishment and loud and cool to sing along with — sure, of course, all of those things. But most importantly, it just seemed like a hell of a lot of fun — to listen to and to play. The White Stripes may some day produce a masterpiece, but right now they seem quite happy reveling in the simple love of recordmaking. Let 'er rip.
