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The White Stripes - Icky Thump
The Detroit duo puts forth their sixth studio album this week, a departure from the experimental, piano-heavy
Get Behind Me Satan (2005) and a return to the heavy rock that has made The White Stripes one of America's premiere rock bands of the last decade. In between the two discs, Jack White released an album with his side-project The Raconteurs and did what any sensible Detroiter does—he left Detroit. White moved to Nashville with his new wife and daughter and recorded Icky Thump in three weeks at the Blackbird Studio. His ex-wife, Stripes drummer Meg White remains in the D, as shy as she's ever been, still reluctant to give interviews even as she and Jack make the rounds promoting their new album.
Although the Stripes released two critically successful albums in the 90s, their breakthrough came in 2001 with White Blood Cells, a disc in which limited though complex instrumentation gave Zeppelin fans affirmation that distorted guitar riffs and symbol crashes were still alive. But the appeal of the White Stripes seemed to stem as much from the music as it did the costumes, the color schemes, the videos, the hats, the facial hair and this overall "where the fuck are these guys from" feeling. They see themselves as the embodiment of some art movement that hasn't quite been invented—always posing and always groomed, always black and red. They almost seem like they would be more at ease at an art museum behind a piece of glass than doing anything else.
Icky Thump can be seen as a follow-up to Get Behind Me Satan in the sense that the Stripes continue to play with instruments other than guitar and drums. Like the xylophone and piano themes of the last album, the new one features a bagpipe song, horns and even some funk guitar. Jack explores the blues on this album like he hasn't in the past. But unlike Get Behind Me Satan, the White Stripes rely on their bread and butter on this album and by that I mean heavy guitar parts and loud drum beats that always sound like they're a half a second late. Jack White said fans who liked their self-titled debut album would enjoy their latest, which means fairly basic.
The name Icky Thump is a misspelled version of "ecky thump," a slang expression in Northern England of surprise. On the band's website, a posting claims the band misspells the title intentionally "just for kicks and metaphors."
Like any big album these days, Icky Thump was leaked to the internet and thus, music fans have been talking about it for months. The album made news three weeks ago when a Chicago disc jockey broadcast all 13 tracks, pirated and at low-quality, over the airwaves. Jack White reacted in the same way that every mp3-generation artist reacts when his music has been stolen and misused: careful not to complain about the lost income resulting from illegally-downloaded music. That wouldn't be rock 'n' roll. Instead they focus on the "cooler" reason why pirated mp3s stink: because the listener hears the music at a lower quality and doesn't get the full experience. In this case, Jack phoned the radio station to express his displeasure. The station claimed it played the album in advance in order to "stay relevant." I'm not sure whether that statement is more illustrative of the sad state of the music industry or the excitement surrounding the new White Stripes' album.
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Bon Jovi - Lost Highway  Uh, not that Bon Jovi was ever that cool, but with their cornily-titled tenth studio album, Jon Bon and the guys enter the whacky world of country music. The New Jersey-bred group has traded in their chopped-down, post-80s old guy hairdos for some cowboy hats. No seriously, Bon Jovi seems to be on the "how uncool can we get" tour. The group appeared at the CMT Country Music Awards in April, showed up at American Idol in May and lost Richie Sambora to rehab this month. Sambora missed the first few shows of a small June tour that will take the group to the new Millenium Dome in London and
the Giants Stadium Live Earth concert on July 7. The Bon Jovi world tour rumored to go through Shanghai kicks off in January.
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The gimmicky 25-piece chorus from Dallas has abandoned the church robes for black combat gear and new logo for their third and latest disc,
The Fragile Army. Since their 2002 debut, The Beginning Stages Of..., critics have often said that musically, Polyphonic Spree could have been the next Radiohead if it weren't for the gimmicks. For those who can get past the choir robes, or even combat gear, on a symphonic rock group, the new album has drawn positive reviews from nearly every music publication, called "an unqualified success" by Pitchfork. The Polyphonic Spree was discovered in 2002 by David Bowie, although their front man had achieved modest success in the early 90s singing for Alt Rock band, Tripping Daisy.
If I told you that Van Morrison was releasing 31 tracks of post-1993 work, you might ask me if I was shitting you. "Has Van Morrison even released an album since '93?" you might ask. Well he actually has. Ten of them. But this third installment from Van the Man is hardly just selections from the twilight of his career. Morrison compiled
Volume 3 himself, complementing his post-'93 music with rarities, remixes, live versions and duets of his classics. He does "Tupelo Honey" with Bobby Bland and "Crazy Love" with Ray Charles. Any fan of Van must have this double-disc set. 
With her new album, the Hollywood starlet has become less "OMG!" and more "VH1."
Wild Hope, a title that rivals Bon Jovi's disc for this week's corniest album name, is Mandy's introspective adult-contemporary record. You know, the one that is supposed to make us forget that she was a teeny-bopper and get everyone talking about how much she's grown as an artist. The album was co-written by some other female alt-pop singer-songwriters like Rachel Yamagata, Michelle Branch and Lori McKenna, and sounds like diet Sheryl Crow. Perhaps,
Wild Hope represents what we will we all need to take Moore seriously as an artist.
-David
Flumenbaum
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