White Stripes: You Don't Know What Love is (You Just Do as You're Told)

Six albums in, the White Stripes are still as color coordinated and screwy as ever and their latest release Icky Thump has managed, it seems to generate more press about what the heck that title means than anything else. Honestly, I haven't heard the album in it's entirety so no judgement here, but I have heard a couple cuts and they weren't too bad. One in particular (check entry title because I'm not typing it again) surprised me to an extent because it felt like a departure from Jack White's nasal whine and vocal eccentricities. Pretty solid, kind of cool...possibly worth snagging off of iTunes. As always the Whites keep things refreshingly uncluttered, a bit of guitar and a bit of percussion and my mutable affinity level for the duo shoots up. The song feels well made and without that feeling like something is lacking yet you can't put your finger on it. It's definitely not "Blue Orchid" or "White Moon" off of Get Behind Me Satan which are piles of notes and chords barely recognizable as songs. "You Don't Know..." is more traditional in a sense like "As Ugly as I Seem" or "I'm Lonely (but I ain't that lonely yet." I like that. If there was one thing that irked me though, the first time I heard the song it reminded me of another and by some miracle I realized that one part of the chorus bares great similarity to "To Love Somebody" by the Bee Gees, but so many years down the life line of rock, total originality is extremely rare. Everything is derivative of something.

That said, I'm curious about the rest of the album. I wonder if it will ride the usual roller coaster of Jack White giving new and unwanted meaning to the phrase "creative liberty" only to coast into just cool rock in top form. I'll try to push aside my usual annoyance with him, especially after his latest turn bashing Detroit in every other interview. The White Stripes wouldn't have been without Detroit and I wish he'd remember that.

In any case Jack and Meg White are to the point where, like it or not...they're here and on several instances proved that they are worth checking out...like him or not.