The White Stripes
White Blood Cells
Sympathy for the Record Industry 2001

The other big hype of last year, after the Strokes, and definitely the better of the two. You probably know about them anyway: an American brother and sister team, Meg and Jack White. She plays drums, he plays guitar and sings. That’s it, yet somehow between them they make a decent rock’n’roll racket. It sounds like a raw, stripped-down Led Zep, a blues rock which acts like neither punk nor heavy metal ever existed. I kind of like them for it. At least they’re using an influence which I haven’t heard anyone else do.

Sometimes it sounds pleasingly fresh and unjaded, as on ‘Hotel Yorba’, and sometimes there’s a glorious urgency to it: ‘Fell in Love with a Girl’ is the best example. The lyrics of that one are a whole little story, a bright, fresh musing on love, which is pretty impressive in under two minutes. I don’t know why he needs to get it over so quickly, but it’s a good effect.

All the same, it hasn’t totally grabbed me. Maybe they put too many songs on there - 16, even if it only lasts 40 minutes - but I always lose interest by the end. Musicians should remember people have short attention spans. Or maybe, much as I hate to criticise a woman drummer, the drumming’s a bit plodding sometimes, ‘I’m Finding it Hard to be a Gentleman’, for instance.

I’d still like to see them live, though. I’d like to see if it’s as exciting as everyone says.