|
I think Jack White needs someone to tell him everything gonna be ok.
I say this because regardless who he’s playing with and what environment he’s in, his attitude towards the audience is always accusatory. On Icky Thump, the latest White Stripes record, he informs us that “You Don’t Know What Love is You Just Do as You’re Told”, and the Raconteurs album, Consolers of the Lonely, that came out this Tuesday is no different. All of the White songs have a kind of sinister sneer in their delivery. At it’s best this attitude comes off as a punk swagger, a middle finger in the face of the crowd, but at it’s worst it’s an abrasive preachy sermon that paints Jack White as the pasty faced hero while the rest of the world looks up to him for advice.
Brendan Benson has a different set of problems. While White’s tirades are always exciting, Bensons singing is contrived and unconvincing. It sounds as though he doesn’t believe the words to the poppy McCartney-esque songs that he’s written. The eighth track on the album, “Many Shades of Black” is a perfect example of this. It’s a great song, with a full horn section and kind of stylized 50’s Doo-wop vibe that’s immediately catchy and appealing. But when Benson hit’s that chorus, the one that should lift you off your feet, the guitars scream, the drums start to peak and the bass climaxes but the vocals fall short of honesty. It sounds like he lost interest just as we were ready to be convinced.
The song that makes this album worthwhile is the title track. “Consolers of the Lonely” starts with voices talking inaudibly and an off-tempo guitar, and as the drums enter you get the impression that you’re listening to the Raconteurs in their living room, having an impromptu jam session that turns into something great. The lyrics are some of the best on the album, a kind of conversation about problem and solution. The verses list grievances from someone whose “skin is getting pale”, someone who needs some kind of help and the chorus is the voice of a savior. Coming into the slowed down half-tempo bridge of the song Jack white explains the situation and allows a glimmer of hope:
If you want an accomplice, A confederate,
You’re gonna find, find yourself alone...
Looking for sympathy
I can get you something good to eat
The sense that I get from this, is that the character complaining in the verse is White himself, a musician who’s losing faith in the process. But the bridge, the solution, isn’t White anymore, it’s something bigger than him, it’s Rock and Roll telling him and us that there’s hope in the grooves of a record.
So maybe that’s the answer to Jack White’s problems. He doesn’t need personal comfort he needs the salvation that comes from Rock and Roll and in certain moments on this album, I think he finds it.
|