"Look Out, Man!"...It Might Get Loud: Jack White

Jack White of The White Stripes

When I first heard about "It Might Get Loud," a friend told me about it because he knew I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan. He might have also been aware that I liked U2 a pretty good bit as well. That's all just to say that I was very interested to see it, but Jack White was by far the least intriguing of the three stars for me personally.

Up to that point, my exposure to White was pretty limited. I remember seeing one of The White Stripes' earliest videos on MTV in the early 2000s ("Fell In Love With a Girl" I believe) and thinking that it was catchy, but obviously, I didn't rush out to buy their CD. Within a few years, I saw them perform on an awards show of some kind. I remember being a bit more impressed by his guitar-playing and recognized that they had charisma and stage presence. Still, I was a bit of a music snob when it came to bands that weren't known for 10 or 15-minute songs.

In the last couple of years, I had two main exposures to Jack White. One was a pretty hilarious cameo as Elvis Presley in "Walk Hard," the John C. Reilly comedy spoofing musical biographies such as "Ray!" and "Walk the Line." His mumbling, mostly incoherent performance was a highlight of the film. Even so, a catchy song or two and a sense of humor were still not quite enough to get me into The White Stripes. But when a friend brought a copy of "Icky Thump" to my house a couple years ago, I was just about sold.

Jack White as Elvis Presley. "It's called karate, man, and only two kinds of people know it: the Chinese and the King...and one of 'em is me."

Fortunately for me, my friend accidentally left the latest White Stripes album at my house and I listened to it a good bit for a week or two. Unfortunately for me (and my friend), I lost it pretty quickly and more or less forgot to look into their music any further. Almost two years later, in cleaning out part of my house I rarely dare to enter, I stumbled across my buddy's CD. This was a couple of weeks ago and I have absolutely worn it out since rediscovering it.

Among several things that really drew me into this album are some unmistakably blues-oriented electric guitar licks, White's impressive vocal style and range (until now, unnoticed or underestimated by me), and a diversity of sound of which I was unaware they had.

The bluesy guitar riffs were the first to draw me in. This is particularly funny in hindsight as White comments in the film that they intentionally chose to have a red, white, and black color scheme, peppermint swirl on Meg's bass drum, etc. for the specific purpose of distracting audiences from the fact that they were just trying to play the blues. Mission accomplished. They tricked me out of listening to them for almost a decade until I noticed the blues myself on this album. Anyway, in my limited exposure to The White Stripes, my impression was much more of a punk or indie band, but there was no mistaking the blues influence on a number of these songs. Much of it (especially the slide guitar stuff) reminded me of Zeppelin's reworking of old blues songs ("In My Time of Dying," "Dazed and Confused," "When the Levee Breaks," etc.). That's never a bad thing to remind me of.

The White Stripes

White's vocals were another major attraction from the opening note. Maybe I just want to hear Zeppelin in everything, and I wouldn't go as far as to say he has Robert Plant's range, but I swear there are several points at which he sounds like he's channeling Plant (especially on "I'm Slowly Turning Into You"). That also is not to say that I think he is cheaply imitating Robert Plant like most 80s hair bands did. He definitely has his own unique and unmistakable vocal style, something that most of my favorite artists have. I definitely underestimated him as a singer up to this point (and any ability to sound anything like Robert Plant scores points with me).

Finally, the sonic diversity on this album was a pleasant surprise. I guess I expected every White Stripes song to be a really loud, fast, mindless two minutes of two chords and some screaming. I couldn't have been more wrong. These guys (he and his ex-wife, Meg White) throw in some acoustic guitar, organ, some electronic-sounding keyboards, bagpipes, and even a little mariachi trumpet. On a track called "Baby Brother," it sounds like Elvis Presley stumbled into the wrong studio and recorded with a punk band. It is rare that an album holds my attention from start to finish, especially if it is a band with which I'm not very familiar. I almost always listen to this one without skipping a track and I attribute that mostly to each song sounding so different.

All of this is to say that "It Might Get Loud" came along at just the right time (just as I got into the the youngest of the three featured guitarists) to completely blow my mind. I found myself on the edge of my seat through much of the movie because there would now be no "down time" between segments on the two guys I really liked. Even if I hadn't just gained a new appreciation for Jack White and The White Stripes, his segments in the film are among the most entertaining and I would have probably checked them out pretty quickly after seeing it.

Apparently Jack White can play more than a whacked-out Elvis.

More on The Edge and Jimmy Page in upcoming posts.