Skip to main content

Elephant - The White Stripes



Year Released: 2003

Label: V2, XL, Third Man

Year Bought: 2003

April 2003. The month I turned 18. I had a car, enough money for petrol, and was heading to the end of my time in sixth form. Driving round Bishop's Stortford with a couple of mates, doing not much, there were a handful of CDs in the glovebox - with the player plugged in of course via one of those cassette adaptors. 

Elephant by The White Stripes was without doubt the most played.

I'd seen them at Reading Festival the year before in a late afternoon slot sandwiched between The Dandy Warhols and Weezer, and it was probably the greatest set I have ever seen to this day.

More on that when we get to White Blood Cells, but that gig made me fall in love with this duo - who seemed to come from another time, another world.

The early 00s was the beginning of the hyper-processed. auto-tuned, sterile music that dominates the chart now, and to hear a band that were so analogue was, ironically, a breath of fresh air.

Anyway, the album. Even before it was released, it felt like this was going to be Jack White's big statement. Like he was going to make a truly classic album that would belong to us - to 18 year olds in small towns driving around, waiting to go off and make our way in the world.

And boy, did he deliver.

Elephant kicks off with what is now the most famous guitar riff ever written. From football stadiums to supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, 'Seven Nation Army' has been adopted by crowds across the world.

The song is of course huge - which is not bad for a tune that doesn't actually have a chorus.

The first four songs are relentless, including the vocal harmony heavy and feedback soaked 'There's No Home For You Here', which sounds like the unholy offspring of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Queen.

Alongside the raucous numbers are some ballads, including the Meg White sung 'In The Cold, Cold Night'. Listening back to the album, the grouping of that song with 'I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart' and 'You've Got Her In Your Pocket' in the middle of the running order do take some of the energy out of the album, and perhaps one of them should have been relegated to a B-side.

The big statement of the album is 'Ball and Biscuit' - a seven-minute long blues number that you feel is the culmination of White's love of Page, Hendrix et al. It's a brilliant tune with searing guitar solos that feel like White is just cutting open a vein and letting it all spill out of him.

There's a great run of three pure garage rock tracks near the end of the record - 'Hypnotize', 'The Air Near My Fingers', 'Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine' - which remind you that White can just throw out songs most bands would kill for.

20 years on it sounds like it did in 2003. Out of date, and therefore timeless. I loved this album then and I love it now. I loved that someone made an album that we knew was one of the greats. I loved that we were at the perfect age to appreciate it. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.

9/10

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Best Of - James

Released: 1998 Label: Fontana When I bought: Can't remember James are one of the great under-appreciated UK bands. Sure, 'Sit Down' will pay their pension, but there's so many great tunes that have been swallowed up and forgotten. When people talk about the great UK bands of the 80s and 90s, they never get a nod. Early in the band's career saw an involvement with Factory Records, but they rarely get a mention when that label is talked about. I remember very clearly when this singles collection was released. It was one of the records that made up the soundtrack to my summer of 1998. I was 13 years old, and into two things: football and music.  At that age I used to spend most of my non-school time in a park at the end of the road I lived in in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, playing football with a bunch of lads about 3 or 4 years older who lived in the neighbourhood. They always had cool CDs, and one of them was this. Seemingly endless games of headers and vo
Post a Comment
Read more

Life For Rent - Dido

  Released: 2003 Label: Arista When I bought: 2003 See, I *told* you this would be every record I own picked at random by my daughter. Otherwise, in the name of credibility, I might have conveniently forgotten to include this record.  Look, I've always been a pop music fan. I grew up with three sisters, and a father who thinks Pete Waterman is a musical genius. Pure pop was always part of my musical palette. So yes, there are pop albums in my collection. It's easy to forget just how huge Dido was. Around 2003/2004 she was, for a time, the biggest pop singer in the UK. Her debut album was the second biggest selling record of the 2000s, and follow-up 'Life For Rent', is seventh on that list. I bought this album in 2003. I have strong memories of listening to it when I was briefly at University of Glamorgan studying English. I dropped out after a few months, partly because I was going a bit mad, and partly because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but being i
Post a Comment
Read more

The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground

Released: 1967 Label: Verve Records (this CD, Polydor) When I bought: Received as a present in 2010 What is there left to say about an album that is so revered it has an almost mythical status? Famously low-selling on its initial 1967 release – although every one who bought a copy went on to form a band, according to Brian Eno - the record pretty much invented art-rock. Produced by Andy Warhol, who of course did the art work, without this record there wouldn't have been Bowie, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Strokes etc etc etc. It's a cult classic, but does it still hold up? Track opener 'Sunday Morning' is perhaps one of the most beautiful and delicate beginnings to any album ever, and provides a contrast to the album closer 'European Son', which ends the record with a cacophony of a-tonal guitars. These two tracks really show the album for what it is: the come up and the come down. The party and the hangover. There are songs on this album that lesser bands have bui
Post a Comment
Read more