When Elephant was released, I was doing my compulsory military service in Finland. At that time, no-one had smart phones and being there isolated from the outside world, it felt like it took a lot longer to find out what was happening in the world. On one evening leave, I went to eat a pizza outside the army barracks with one of my friends and I saw the music video for Seven Nation Army on the TV. Firstly, I was baffled to see The White Stripes being shown on one of those commercial music video channels. I had thought it was too alternative to ever get that kind of publicity. Secondly, I remember thinking that the sound of the song was very different from the previous albums. I remember thinking they had really given up the raw and aggressive overdriven guitars for much more controlled studio sound. Later on, I realised that not all of this album was like that. Seven Nation Army was something special and that's probably why it became such a massive hit. It was more appropriate for mainstream masses than most of White Stripes raw material.
The album begins with the biggest hit the band ever released, Seven Nation Army. This has become such a huge anthem that it's being chanted in football games and other sporting events around the world. My personal fondest memory of the song is when I played guitar and sung this in the house band of a musical theatre piece in university. I got wide-spread appreciation for my performance. Black Math takes the sound back to basics of White Stripes. The aggressive guitar riffs and drumming really make you want to jump around. This is more about attitude than about songwriting, definitely. There's No Home for You Here has a bluesy style that gives more room for quiet parts and you can really appreciate the changes in guitar sounds. This kind of contrast is what White Stripes does best. I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself is a Burt Bacharach cover. An unlikely choice for a cover song, but that's exactly why it really works so nicely. The next song, In the Cold, Cold Night is a nice and kind of creepy song. It features just a quiet guitar and bass and Meg White singing with her laconic vocals. It gives nice contrast to the more aggressive songs on the album. I Want to be the Boy... shows the more delicate sound of Jack White's vocals. I like the song grows little by little towards the end. You've Got Her In Your Pocket continues the more quiet phase of the album. This song is a proper ear worm and it's been playing in my head many times over the years. I like how Jack is capable of turning his piercing rock vocals into this trembling and endearing voice you can hear in songs like this. Ball and Biscuit is a song I didn't like that much when the album was released, but which has become one of my favourite songs from the album later on. The bluesy song that starts really slowly, but explodes into amazing guitar explosion later on needed some getting into. The Hardest Button to Button is another one of my favourite songs from the album. The looping guitar riff and pounding tom drums are excellent and when the chorus breaks out, the explosion is pure perfection. Little Acorns is one of the strangest songs The White Stripes has ever made. It has this strange story of a squirrel who's preparing for the winter that's giving the storyteller strength to get ahead in their life. The piercing electric guitars that come in afterwards are some of the most aggressive in the band's career. Hypnotise is a bit of the old White Stripes. It's beautifully short and concise and the sounds are perfectly raw. The Air Near My Fingers continues on a same route. The pounding is excellent! Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine is a fantastic fast-tempo song. One of the songs that works the best live as it makes everyone jump to the music. The album ends with a beautifully funny country song It's True That We Love One Another. It features a British singer Holly Golightly who's singing a funny duet with Jack with occasional side comment from Meg.
The music video for The Hardest Button to Button is one of my favourite music videos. The song has a very steady beat and in the video, according to that beat, Meg multiplies in a huge queue with her drum kit while Jack is playing his guitar and singing in the forefront with his amplifiers multiplying in a same way as Meg's drum kit. They're travelling like this through the city. There's not really any kind of storyline to the video, but I just love how well it fits in with the mood of the song.
I got to see The White Stripes live on the Elephant tour in Stockholm. The White Stripes was probably my all time favourite band at that point and I had just missed them when they had been in Helsinki during their previous album's tour, because I discovered them slightly too late. Seeing them was a really big deal and I really liked the gig even though the venue was a soulless ice hockey rink style large hall where it was difficult to see anything behind tall Swedes. I specifically remember the two guys close to the ceiling in armchairs pointing their spotlights to the stage. The whole gig experience was like watching a band practice in their garage for a couple of hours. Jack would just leave his guitar down on the ground when he went to play the piano and there was feedback throughout the song from it. I bought a T-shirt from that show that unfortunately got way too small for me really quickly as that was the time when I started gaining a bit of weight after being really slim after my military service.
Elephant is not my favourite album from the White Stripes, but it's still one hell of an album. And it's amazing that a band that sounds this raw and original was able to get into the mainstream even in the early 00s.
Listen to the album on Spotify.
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