Friday 1 June 2007

Icky Thump? Oh Snap!



White Stripes - Icky Thump

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I heard this for the first time yesterday.

Yippee kai yay motherfucker; Meg & Jack are back!

I had tonnes of extremely insightful things to say about this, but I'm actually too excited to say anything important. Listen, just listen. GAH.

The White Stripes got me out of the Huge Depression With Modern Music. I believe they have integrity - which is difficult for me to say, as I don't believe many bands actually have integrity - because the music industry is such a, well, industry, so much of what should be uninfluenced purity is effected by stuff like 'you need to sexify your image' and 'can you be less political?' and, in short, over marketed, over produced, and over hyped.

I don't really know how to address my antipathy towards the music industry, and by proxy a large percentage of contemporary music -- when new bands come onto the scene, I am Instantly Suspicious of them. Instantly. I don't trust them. By default I think they're media pawns or fame junkies - and it takes a lot for me to consider musicians otherwise. Pretty much, they have to make a Really Fucking Good album for me to start changing my mind - and they have to back it up.

But moving back in time -- Icky Thump:

It has no chorus -- WTF how can the random 'lah-lah-lah' be so frightening and effective -- that organ is amazing - did he just get political again?

Last time I heard Jack get political was, what, their first album? Big Three Killed My Baby? Man O' Man!

And then the more and more I listen, the more I start to believe that the guitar breaks are the chorus. Three in all. Oh man. I won't slaughter the song anymore. I love it so.

As I am discussing contemporary artists that don't make me want to die, let me give you three more:

Patrick Wolf - Camp, British, good.
Peachcake - Surreal Electropop, give me hope.
Bright Eyes - Yeah I said it.

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