Artist – Album: The White Stripes - Elephant
Released: 1st
April 2003
Sounds Like: Fools Gold
The White Stripes first rose to prominence in 1997, when the
Amish ghost couple Meg & Jack Van White finished as runners up in the
talent show America’s Got Singing. Despite only finishing second to the irrepressible
Aqua, critics and the audience were taken in by their ancient garage blues rock
(as well as Jack’s wonderful carpentry performed in between songs).
Naming themselves The White Stripes as they are the duo’s
favourite bits of a zebra, they liked the name so much that they also called
their first album it. They would have liked to have named all of their albums similarly,
but were eventually talked down by their record label. ‘De Stijl’ (in English, ‘the stilt’) and ‘White Blood Cells’ followed, and cemented the groups reputation as
one of the finest rock bands around.
Elephant, their fourth album, took the two-piece to another
level as songs like ‘Seven Nation Army’ and
‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself’
stormed up the charts, and ‘The
Hardest Button to Button’ was named influential actor George Takei’s
favourite song of the week. The latter is a good example of the themes
investigated in the record – set during the Second World War, it’s follows the
story of the German scientists who worked to develop the world’s most difficult
fastener in a ploy to distract the Allied Forces.
Not really, April Fools!
It’s just an utterly brilliant album, one of the best of the
last decade. Go find out.
Albumaday... rating: 10/10
1. Seven
Nation Army – 3:52
2. Black
Math – 3:04
3. There’s
No Home for You Here – 3:44
4. I
Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself – 2:46
5. In
the Cold, Cold Night – 2:58
6. I
Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart – 3:21
7. You’ve
Got Her in Your Pocket – 3:40
8. Ball
and Biscuit – 7:19
9. The
Hardest Button to Button – 3:32
10. Little
Acorns – 4:09
11. Hypnotize
– 1:48
12. The
Air Near My Fingers – 3:40
13. Girl,
You Have No Faith in Medicine – 3:18
14. Well
It’s True That We Love One Another – 2:43
Listen to ‘The Air
Near My Fingers’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_xbEMC8lHM
Also released on the 1st April:
1976: Rush – 2112
|
Also released on the 1st April:
2008: The Black Keys – Attack & Release
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