Cue Anon!
Solo album number six – his best yet?
By John Mulvey.
The man with No Name: Jack White continues to confound expectations.
Jack White ★★★★
No Name
THIRD MAN. DL/LP
LITTLE ROOM isn’t, perhaps, the most celebrated song in The White Stripes catalogue, appearing halfway through 2001’s White Blood Cells and lasting a mere 50 seconds. But it effectively summarises a paradox Jack White has been grappling with for over two decades. A portrait of the lo-fi artist “working on something good” in his Little Room, it finds White contemplating what happens next when, “If it’s really good/You’re gonna need a bigger room.” Bigger rooms, of course, bring their own challenges: in them, “You might have to think of how you got started/Sitting in your little room.” When The White Stripes became a global phenomenon in the early 2000s, White initially remained evangelical about recording in the most primitive environments. “The most punk thing I could muster up in my brain to rebel against was this new digital world,” he recalled to MOJO in 2018. Gradually, though, White expanded on his musical vision. Pro Tools, once anathema, were creatively embraced. Hip-hop production was pronounced “the punk rock of right now”. His whole solo career has often felt like a negotiation between honouring rock and roots tradition while vigorously – and eccentrically – updating them.