So why is The White Stripes’ Icky Thump on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
There are songs on every White Stripes album that I become completely obsessed with. That’s expected.
But there are times when the obsession surprises me, where I’m not sure how the song came into my life and took up a small but permanent place in my world and my own personal musical ecosystem.
On Icky Thump, there are the songs that I’m “regular obsessed with,” I guess you could say, that I’ll get to in a bit, but the caught me off my guard obsession example here is “A Martyr for My Love for You.”
It’s a relatively quiet song – at least at times – by The White Stripes standards. I had a hard time trying to describe the genre that it falls into, so I asked the Internet and got the result back that it’s alt country. I’m not sure that I agree, but I do know that it has sections that explode into something that’s more electric blues/garage punk (in a way that transcends even the very best material that one of Jack White’s other bands, The Dead Weather, has ever produced).
What’s so great about the very best songs sometimes is that they make you consider these kinds of things. With “A Martyr for My Love for You,” the lyrics are a strikingly confessional first-person narrative. It’s a song about young love and heartbreak of some kind. As with strong writing across all genres, it’s specific and believable.
She was sixteen and six feet tall
In a crowd of teenagers comin’ out of the zoo
She stumbled, started to slip and fall
Teeter-tottered on the top of patent leather shoes
I happened to catch her and said
“Maybe these ruby shoes are a little cumbersome for you”
Maybe for you, now
Our narrator seemingly breaks up with this girl later in the song, perhaps because he’s convinced he’ll just screw things up at some point anyway.
You’ll probably call me a fool
and say I’m doin’ exactly what a coward would do
And I’m beginning to like you
It’s a shame, what a lame way to live, but what can I do?
I hope you appreciate what I do
Songfacts quotes an August 2007 interview from Guitar World with Jack White about the song, which is pretty interesting and revealing:
Most people, when they start a relationship don’t say, ‘Oh come on, we know how this is is [sic] going to end. Let’s not even bother.’ The idea is, what’s the difference between negativity and realism? They’re very close. A lot of things I say sound realistic in my mind, but to other people they may sound very negative.”
If “A Martyr for My Love for You” is the most intriguing song on Icky Thump, “Conquest” is its most exciting.
One of my favorite discoveries while compiling this massive best 1,000 albums ever project stemmed from learning via Wikipedia that “Conquest” was first recorded by Corky Robbins “and popularized in the 1950s by Patti Page.” This Corky Robbins and Johnny Bosworth version from 1952 is just exquisite.
And here’s my favorite bit of all: “Jack White first liked the song when he would listen to Page’s hits album while working in his upholstery shop. He had wanted to cover the song for ten years when he finally did in 2007.”
This reminds me that White indeed worked in an upholstery shop before earning enough money to become a full-time musician. If you’re a fan of Jack White (or Led Zeppelin or U2), I can’t recommend the music documentary, It Might Get Loud, enough. While it’s an objective fact that White is a massively talented musician, it’s riveting to see how tactile he is with guitars, instruments generally, and performance. Fantastic stuff.
Also: I like the Spanish language version of “Conquest,” called “Conquista” naturally, a little better than the English one.
Pretty incredible music video too – it makes me wish that Jack and Meg White had produced an indie movie or two in their day.
It’s really fun that The White Stripes can bust out an arena shaking worthy track when they’re of a mind (and reminder that “Seven Nation Army” has improbably become a sports stadium standard well into the mid-2020s!), and “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told)” is one such offering provided on Icky Thump.
Equally fun: there are a number of wildly eclectic tracks on Icky Thump that push the boundaries of where Jack and Meg tread ever further. Examples: “Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” is an upbeat traditional English folk-flavored song, and “St. Andrew (This Battle Is In the Air)” moves over to Scotland as it busts out the bagpipes while going a bit art rock/experimental, as Meg White offers spoken-word fragments within the sonic mix.
“Effect and Cause,” the album closer, is a perfect acoustic blues rocker in my book – I love it to all manner, shapes, and sizes of pieces (if it’s possible to do so? I say it is).
Icky Thump delivers because it reveals every strange and beautiful corner of The White Stripes’ world – the tender, the ferocious, and the sublime.
Some stats & info about The White Stripes – Icky Thump
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Detroit Bands, Garage Rock Revival, Garage Punk, Alternative Rock, Blues Rock, Hard Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Icky Thump released? 2007
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #95 out of 1,000
The White Stripes’ Icky Thump on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The White Stripes’ Icky Thump that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I guess you have to have a problem, if you want to invent a contraption. First you cause a train wreck, then they put me in traction.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.