Hello to all the Candy Cane Children in the land,
The White Stripes have completed the recording and mixing of their sixth album. It is entitled:
"Icky Thump"
It is their first album to include a title track, which curiously (and not ironically) has the same words in its name. Though some residents of northern England might almost recognize the title, The Stripes stress they are spelling it wrong intentionally just for "kicks" and "metaphors", and to avoid a possible lawsuit from the estate of Billy Eckstine.
The record was recorded in Nashville at Blackbird Studio. And word around the sewing circle is that many of your favourite White Stripe type songs may not be your favourite (pronounced favaright) White Stripe type songs for long.
Some song titles include:
Catch Hell Blues
Little Cream Soda
Monkeys Have It Easy (discarded)
Rag And Bone
Clicky Bump (retitled into something pleasant)
Blue Orchid (relocated to previous album)
and
You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)
It was the longest time the delightful duo has ever spent in the studio, totalling almost three weeks. Jack and Meg were said to have been looking like they were "into it almost". And even Meg herself was quoted while leaving a local Nashville laundromat saying that the record was, in her best estimate; "finished", "musical in nature" and lastly, though slightly muffled, "good".
www.whitestripes.com has a short film clip of The Stripes working on a thoroughly rough and ghastly early version of a track from the new album entitled "I'm Slowly Turning Into You".
(The actual music has been replaced with mid eighties sampling keyboard technology to prevent what industry analysts are now calling "song poaching")
The Stripes will be releasing a statement soon saying: "we are doing our best (whatever that is) to release the album as soon as corporately possible. And though we are tired, worn, weary, hungry, cold, and left without an ounce of nutrition amongst ourselves, we are in the midst of planning performance type shows aroundst the world."
named after a Goodies reference?
but in the show it's 'Ecky' thump.
I'd take Icky Mettle over Icky Thump any day, even without having heard the latter.....
exactly what i thought when i read the word icky.
is this a real presser or not.. first ive heard of a new white stripes album.. but they seem to have a pretty quick turn around from starting to record to release
the sabnouteurs album was more enjoyable than get behind me satan..
oh sweet.
lordy lord please make this a good album.
thankee sir.
kuro remembers ecky thump.
just another reason to love her.
drops reason into bucket
One of the stupidest press releases in the history of stupid press releases.
Too cute by half.
don't get me started.........
There's no way this could possibly be worse than Satan. Is there?
they've made the whole album on an 808 and a stairwell.
they've made the whole album on an 808 and a stairwell.
That sounds actually, you know, good.
Pity it ain't so.
I expect one of the songs will have a repetitive 4/4 beat, while jack plays G C D G. Then, there'll be a faster song, where jack plays A G C D A.
Then he will fapp and Meg will dribble.
The title is like an onomatopoeia for Meg's drumming....
this review/preview really makes me want to listen to this album.
doh, lets try the link again.
uncut preview
after the last one, i really don't want to listen to this album.
leaked track from xfm radio
View Comments 20 to 90
We've limited the amount of comments shown in these larger topics to allow for faster viewing, simply click here to load all the missing comments ...
Yeah, his songwriting has certainly gone downhill.
It's really a shame, I saw him going on for decades without a dip.
It says a lot when the best song on your new album is the only cover.
I got bored half way through the 2nd track,
I'VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE JACK.
could it be...the soundtrack of Rocky Horror Picture Show meets The Shaggs?
Well, the album's gone gold, with only 4 days on the shelf . . . looks like it's a fight between Traveling Wilburys and White Stripes for ARIA #1 for next week.
Fell Out of Love With a Band
Absurd bagpipes and half-assed prog retreads sink the Stripes' sixth manifesto
by Nate Cavalieri
June 20th, 2007 12:06 PM
While absorbing the Blueshammer ersatz and pheromone-scented metallurgy of Icky Thump, the White Stripes' sixth record, it's hard not to long for the candy-striped sibs who once sat in that little room, working on something good. Remember them? Way back before the supermodel weddings, Nashville mansions, and sundry side projects? Just Jack on guitar and Meg on drums. So what if she played like a paste-addled fourth-grader? All that stuff about falling in love with a girl, going to Wichita, and seeing rats on the doorstep was as straightforward and vibrant as the wardrobe. Jack himself certainly remembers—on Thump's ''Little Cream Soda,'' he lays aside the thrasher riffs for a second to recall the days when ''a wooden box and an alley full of rocks was all I had to care about,'' only to toss off the sentiment with a dismissive snarl: ''Oh well.''
''Oh well''? Oh well, the affecting style that made them the most imaginative revivalists of their generation has been replaced by half-assed and half-hearted prog rock. Oh well, the pair of blues tunes here (''300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues'' and ''Catch Hell Blues'') have such an awkward gait they actually feel like they're played by obligated divorcees. Oh well, it sounds like Jack wrote these songs in five minutes and Meg learned them in three. Oh well, the mere fact of being the White Stripes has spoiled the very thing that once made them saviors.
But unless they're saving the army of Candy Children from a deficiency of Bad Company, tunes like ''You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told)'' and ''Effect & Cause'' don't reinvent the wheel so much as hastily retread it. Owing much to young Ozzy (''Icky Thump''), old Ozzy (''Little Cream Soda''), and Humble Pie (''I'm Slowly Turning Into You''), the rest of Thump 's character seems just as lazily borrowed. What's worse, the scraps of originality—the bullfighting, trumpet-backed fanfare of ''Conquest'' and the two-part bagpipe jig ''Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn/St. Andrew (The Battle Is in the Air)''—are simply absurd.
Which leaves ''Rag and Bone,'' a half-song/half-skit wherein Meg and Jack talk about ransacking a vast, cluttered room in a sprawling mansion. Jack admits the motive (''Make some money out of 'em, at least!''); ''This fits me perfect,'' Meg answers in a greedy whisper. They don't notice that they're still standing in the same little room they once built, but it's just become too icky to recognize. Oh well.
village voice
wow - just a bit of venom in that review
just listened to it for the first time. i laughed at some points. but maybe not at the points they may have wanted me to.
couple of good songs....
worthy of the blueshammer ersatz tag?
worthy of the blueshammer ersatz tag?
No.
While it's certainly not their worst, it's far from their best. He seems to have peaked creatively. The bagpipe bits I quite enjoyed. A decent listen, but if this was their debut I doubt they'd have the following they have now.
that review aiin't too wrong. yet it's STILL much, much better than ''get behind me satan''.
well, i really enjoyed ''get behind me satan'' and out of all their albums ''elephant'' would be the fave - so yeah, i dig the proggy stuff. i reckon the earlier albums are a bit flat - a bit too much of a one trick thing
Got this yesterday. On first listen I quite like it. I'll listen to it a bit more today before forming an opinion on it.
i don't care what anyone says, 'Get Behind Me Satan' is a freakin' great record - up there with 'Elephant' but just different....
as for Icky Thump, only heard the single which I'm diggin'
after listening to it for a while, i like this album. i just think jack white keeps building an impressive canon of music and this album complements all the other releases.
Well . . . there you have it . . . it's debuted at #3. Not bad considering 1 and 2 were Traveling Wilburies and Powderfinger.
live on conan includes MP3 version to boot.
Jack would be great in a new Traveling Wilburies... his Dylan covers are gold
Secret show where they come out to play only one note.
Awesome.
Now that's value for money!
This album is fantastic.
I am however, two tracks in.
Melb trams get Icky!