The White Stripes
Icky Thump

Warner Bros. 2007

By Zach Stephenson

Having pole-vaulted over the line of saturation in pop culture’s diaper with 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan, new albums from the White Stripes are nonevents. Their personalities and outfits are somehow the event now, keeping Dr. Seuss-esque cash tills aflutter and magazine covers covered like Jack Sparrow, and sometimes new music arises to blow this pinwheel.

Even though Elephant was the peak heard on shitty car speakers around the world, Icky Thump still deserves a chance to kindle the effortless rock outs from their days on Sympathy for the Record Industry. Commerce aside, the Stripes will always deserve that chance.

The titular first single grows on you before it wedges in a keyboard solo that’s like a baseball through a window. Then the album turns decidedly more Jethro, as Jack and Meg White begin an imaginary tour where they can do whatever they wish and the people will follow.

The Icky Thump tour begins in an empty Alabama karaoke bar where Jack and Meg play Skynyrd covers and conclude with an original smash called “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” They use the night’s slim earnings to buy beads and finish making two folky cowboy uniforms. Off to L.A., they smoke a bunch of weed and make “Conquest” with Jack Black for a split 7” with Tenacious D.

Tired of the States, the band pulls a Griswold and follows Black to England in time for Yorkshire Day. They drink from goblets and record “Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn.” They come across bagpipes and continue the excursion with “St. Andrew.”

Their journey—a grin-filled blur of doing no wrong, if not a total disillusion—complete, the Stripes return to their native Detroit. Jack goes off to bang his model wife and Meg answers her voice mails per more modeling work. The label calls—oh, that—wanting a new release. They call it Icky Thump and their fans live with its few so-so singles like five p in a beggar's hands.

This discourse of The White Stripes' Icky Thump is written by Zach Stephenson for ignore Magazine, copyright 2007.