The White Stripes – De Stijl (2000)

I was a massive fan of The White Stripes from the first moments I heard about them. This was just after the release of their third album White Blood Cells. That album is still my favourite one. Of course, because I liked the band so much, I immediately investigated what other albums the band had already released. There was their self-titled debut album and this one, De Stijl. For some reason, I did like the debut, but I didn't like De Stijl. Maybe it was because De Stijl is not a very melodic album compared to the other ones and I really put a lot of weight on melodies in music. Nevertheless, for a long time, De Stijl was that one White Stripes album I didn't really care for that much. It's still not their best piece of work, but also, I don't really see why I disliked it so much in the first place. It's a great album of raw guitars and drums with excellent retro look on the American rock history.

De Stijl is a style of modern art and the album cover shows a great example of what it is. The visual aesthetics of The White Stripes was always really important to me. I even only bought red, black and white clothes at some point, because I felt like the colour scheme was so cool. From today's perspective, that sounds a bit strange, but The White Stripes was the coolest of the cool at the time when I was a young adult and trying to find my identity, so they have definitely had an impact on who I am today.

The album starts with raw electric guitars and cymbal-heavy drumming in You're Pretty Good Looking. The song itself is almost laughably simple, but it's all about attitude. Next up is the clearest hit song of the album, Hello Operator. This song has very heavy and raw guitars and the solos even remind me of some Led Zeppelin songs. In many ways, I feel like The White Stripes was a retro band tipping its hat to all of those great 70's bands and since the electric guitars had not been so cool in a while, I was really excited about this in the early 00's. Little Bird takes a bluesier approach. The song is really not that easily approachable from a conventional pop-music perspective, but if you know anything about old blues in the US southern states, you'll hear the references. Apple Blossom also sounds like a traditional Americana blues song. It even has those slightly off-key pianos. I really like the melody in this song. I'm Bound to Pack It Up sounds a lot like Led Zeppelin's third album that used lots of acoustic guitars and folkier stylings. It's great to have these slightly toned down songs in between all the garage riffs. Death Letter returns the album back to simple and raw guitar riffs. It sounds a bit like it would've been just played on track in a training space with one take, but I'm sure more thought went into recording it. Sister, Do You Know My Name? is another blues song with great steel sounding guitars. There's something truly American in these sounds. Truth Doesn't Make a Noise is probably my favourite song on this album. I love the melancholic melody played on mixed acoustic and electric guitars and the echoey off-key piano really gives it a nice edge. Let's Build a Home is one of the most aggressive rock songs on the album. It sounds like a song that would've made a younger me jump up and down wildly on a gig. Jumble, Jumble continues in similar vein with very heavy guitar riffs and sharp solos. Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me also has some great country-western influenced hard rock riffs. The album ends with Your Southern Can Is Mine which is a proper country-western song.

Apparently De Stijl didn't have any music videos. But there is a video for Hello Operator, that has apparently been released later. It's not a very interesting music video. It just shows Jack and Meg going on a ferry and there are lots of stills. I'm not even suer if it's actually an official video. Nevertheless, I linked it here.

I saw The White Stripes live in Stockholm a few years later after the release of Elephant. That was a great gig even though they were quite big already at the time. Apparently they had done a smaller club gig in Helsinki earlier after White Blood Cells but I had just discovered the band and didn't go to the gig, which is something I regret to this day.

Listening to De Stijl makes me wonder who on earth did this band become so successful later on. They're quite far from commercial. Then again, it's always really great when something like this happens, because it shows that there is some hope in the world when bands that go against everything big record labels and radio stations stand for become successful. If you like blues, garage rock, raw electric guitars and cymbal drumming, De Stijl is a great album!

Listen to the album on Spotify.