The White Stripes – De Stijl

When I think about music during the summer and the different waves of heat, The White Stripes always ring that stunningly live sound. All their albums possess a raw, visceral feel (captured mostly through Jack White’s amazingly brisk production) and they sound gorgeously alive on vinyl. The first time I came across this band was during their Elephant rise back in 2003 and I backtracked to their starting music. With De Stijl they truly celebrated their raw blues/punk/rock fusion and delivered an album simplistically excellent. Dutch for ‘the style,’ the album features art from that movement of art known for relishing the simple side of life with use of sole primary colors and basic shapes; and the Stripes took to that matching music that was undeniably blues at the core. Dedicated to an architect who created museums and more in Holland, it was also dedicated to Blind Willie McTell – a blues pioneer from the 1920-40s – the Stripes know their stuff. It’s also the first record I was able to get by them and finishing out a long time without a vinyl play, it sounded great all day today.

With "Apple Blossom" you have your standard blues song that roughly fine-tunes the edges with a lulling guitar and passive feel. It sounds like a lost song by Paul McCartney through White’s romantic lyrics. The feel is truly bluesy with the chords decorating the music’s longing feel. He’s basically telling her that he’ll take care of her, cure all her problems and to stop crying because she looks so much better smiling. A diehard Stripes fan (one of the people who first told me how dynamite they were) told me he thinks it to be about basically trying to bag a virgin with the male’s domineering style. I’m not sure about that but I wouldn’t be surprised! Still, simple blues at it’s finest.

Unlike the aforementioned Elephant, De Stijl won’t feature the roaring guitar shredding or huge sounds the Stripes most recently made. But that’s the beauty of the White Stripes, they made a nice round 6 albums in about 8 years and the only time they took breaks was for White to work on another album or project. They consistently changed up their sound from album to album, shifting through different styles of blues and rock in a ball of awesomeness. So each album is a different story, a different style, a different kind of beauty. Here with “Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me?” they rip through a playful rhyming pattern to more of a louder sound (White shows off his guitar skill and grit like a modern day Jimi Hendrix, yes an apt comparison to make) and perhaps, this is the most charged song on here. Either way, it’s all gold really. – Bryan