Blunderbuss Revisited

Just like he did when I first started listening to the White Stripes, Jack White has revitalized my faith in rock and roll. I was in a bit of a dark night of the soul recently and I truly believed that rock was dead.

Along came Blunderbuss.



This album not only met all my expectations but surpassed them. It has everything I wanted and everything I needed and everything I wish I could do. The songs are typical Jack, and each could have been a White Stripes song except for the fact that they are played with a full band. In fact, if the White Stripes' material had been recorded this way, it would probably have been much better. The album is dense with not only rock band guitars, basses and drums, but also mandolins, pianos and organs, violins, pedal steels, and more.

Except for one cover, Jack wrote and produced every song. He also played a variety of instruments on the record, which is expected from such a fantastic multi-instrumentalist. Throughout his career he has played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, mandolin, marimba and probably others I'm forgetting. He is like a modern day Neil Young, and my generation's only real rock hero.

Like Neil Young, Jack White's best skill is his songwriting. The lyrics on Blunderbuss are brilliant and rather dark. Like Neil Young, Jack White is an incredibly eclectic and diverse songwriter. There is quite a wide variety of sounds and emotions on Blunderbuss, particularly comparing the first and second halves. In an interview on NPR recently, Jack said he approaches the track order of his albums as if it's a vinyl record with two sides, and there is an obvious change in direction halfway through after "Weep Themselves to Sleep." The songs after lean much more toward classic Little Richard rock and roll, folk music and blues.

To cover the wide variety of sounds on the record, Jack has gone from touring with a two-piece band to touring with two five-piece bands. One male, one female. Judging by the live concert stream this past Friday in which he played ~50 minute set with both bands, the female band is much tighter and much more energetic than the male band, and they're probably better instrumentalists too.

Blunderbuss is currently #1 in the US, UK, Canada and Switzerland. I contributed to that success by making it the first album I've actually paid for in about a year. The album was leaked a week early and of course I snatched it up and listened to it exhaustively. But I liked it so much I went out and bought it anyway on the day it was released. In fact, I liked it SO much that I almost bought the last two copies they had at the store...