The White Stripes - 'Conquest'
It's always been a bit baffling to watch most of the people in the music media fall over themselves to try and justify the way Jack and Meg White choose to conduct their business along strict rock lines. Rock, as we've discussed many times in the past, is all about things being 'real' and exposing your 'soul' and stuff like that. And the amount of rubbish rock journos have had to talk just in order to justify including the White Stripes in The Pantheon Of Cool has been hilarious to watch, especially when they insist on abiding by a strict, self-imposed dress code (like the boybands do), making up stories about themselves and hiding behind them (like the rappers do), and generally acting like the genius pop band they clearly are.
Now, clearly pigeon-holing a band as unique as the White Stripes is a bad idea, there's lots about them which is clearly so incredibly ROCK you could use it to build Fred Flintstone's house, but it is interesting how they manage to get away with some of the stuff your average rocksnob would crucify a band like McFly for trying. Don't believe me? Try to imagine the splutters of scorn and outrage which would rain down if Tom, Danny and the boys decided to only dress in sailor suits, and claimed to all be brothers, and had released the nutbag genius of 'Transylvania' as their first single...
...seriously, people would explode. And yet the White Stripes have got away with doing something very similar, partly because they've got The Blues, and that's all about the 'real' and the 'soulful' again, partly because Jack White talks like a rocksnob, even while he's walking like a pop star, and partly because the White Stripes are really really good, and if you have to pretend things are not the way you normally claim to like them to be, so that you can get your mosh on, well, so be it.
Which brings me to 'Conquest', another startling song in a canon of startling songs, and one which demands your full attention, not least because it's a kind of punk rock / flamenco crossover, full of haughtily-stamped heels and flared nostrils. It also contains some of the most histrionic vocal work you'll hear this side of Paul Potts passing a kidney stone, and a stark story of a man using a lady as some kind of sex-trophy, only to find he has been duped into marrying her, and therefore she wins.
Again, anyone else coming out with this kind of pre-feminist silliness in the modern age would wake up one morning to find their knackers stapled to a moving train, but this is the White Stripes. Normal rules don't apply to them. This is because they are so playful with the music of the past, it seems kind of fitting that they should be allowed to play with some of the attitudes that came with that music.
After all, the huff and puff of flamenco is rooted in very traditional Spanish attitudes, going back hundreds of years. Plus you know Jack White isn't representing himself within his songs, he's telling a story, and his narrator is the one with the outdated ideas of hunter and prey. It's a kind of pantomime, only without the leading man actually being a girl, and his mother actually being a man.
Having said that, these are the kind of ideas which could easily appear in a future White Stripes conceit. They're that kind of pop band, after all...
Download: Out now
CD Released: December 31st
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
Maybe no one cares because lots of musicians who aren't boybands wear matching outfits onstage? Devo? Rocket From the Crypt? The Hives? The Ramones? The White Stripes are hardly the first band in the history of rock to have a unified image. In fact, Turbonegro already did as you suggest and dressed as sailors.
Also, you do realise 'Conquest' is a cover song, right?
[OMG! They're doing COVERS? But...but...that's what WESTLIFE do! - Fraser]
[PS: The point about the uniforms is that in order for the snootier rock journo to accept them, they have to be 'concept' uniforms, like they're either a nod to showbizzier times (Rocket From The Crypt) or a way to make your band a brilliant cartoon (Hives, Ramones) or a way to seperate a band of boffins from the dull rock herd from the second people first see you (Devo, the Residents). The amount of column inches devoted to why the White Stripes only wear red, white or black is astonishing, especially when you consider a pop band would only have to say "because it looks cool" and everyone would be fine with it. ]
Not overly keen on the White Stripes, but this song is amazing! Anyone know who did the original as I am too lazy to find out myself. Also, is it anygood?