Third Man's The Charm.
"I'm thinking of starting a corperation. Whose with me?" Jack White proclaims on the White Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather trilogy bandsmans third solo album on his Third Man imprint. But don't worry, despite his self-made record business in the heart of Music City, Nashville, Mr. White isn't selling out to the masses. It's all not so subtle, tongue in cheek lashing passive aggression to not be passed over on the track 'Corperation'. Which also features starting a revolution lyrics like "Nowadays, that's how you get adulation" and "I'm gonna buy up all the empty lots and make one giant farm/Who's with me?" Highlighting an album highlight off 'Boarding House Reach', that after the solo self 'Blunderbuss' beginning and lavishing 'Lazaretto' follow (not to mention or forget his amazing acoustic recording, the gold standard, shining 'Great Gatsby' standout for Jay-Z's curated soundtrack ('Love Is Blindness') and his 'Lemonade' sip in return with Beyonce ('Don't Hurt Yourself')), is a bat#### classic. Weird and wonderful and brilliant and bold like his trademark guitar riffing. Jack's most ambitious shot out the box yet is screamingly beautiful. Complete with soul singing in the background for a rock and roll king from the town that's a little bit country, who with all his recent musical company has found a nuanced hip-hop niche. Yep, Jack White raps on this album that is all over the place but in a grand and great way that will have your headphones permanently in place. Besides when Beck does it you don't complain like his latest classic 'Colors'. Or how about when late, great Aussie INXS ruler and most formidable frontman Michael Hutchence turned the 'Kick' of the bands biggest hit 'Need You Tonight' into a remixed interlude 'Mediate' complete with placard phrase, Dylan-esque cue cards? White can do it too and this Jack of all trades jacks up both the amps and the 808s...and that's not even a self-serving plug. Whose with me?
Like what real music is supposed to be all about. It's just all connected. Connected like the lead single and very human alien invasion video says, 'Connected By Love'. Singing, "Woman, don't you know what I'm suffering from/Ease my pain, make it wash on with the rain/Relieve me and put it up on your shelf/Take it away, and give it to somebody else" on what may be the superior solo single of his collaborating career, Jack gives us one of the best blues numbers in a grand genre. But it's got nothing on the soul stirring, straight-laced, second single standout, 'Over and Over and Over' with again a Penrose perfect back and forth video, painted in 'Boarding House' and 'Lazaretto' blue and even A-Ha/Paddington background white. With 'Icky Thump' duking licks and a visual as epic as the White Stripes video classics of the groundbreaking kaleidoscope of 'Seven Nation Army' and the repeating 'The Hardest Button To Button', 'Over and Over' impresses as one of the strongest songs in his entire, epic classic catalogue. But as he sings, "The Sisyphean dreamer/My fibula and femur/Hold the weight of the world/(Over and over)/I think, therefore I die/Anxiety and I rolling down a mountain/(Over and over)/My shoulder holds the weight of the world" screaming for the sign of the times this even has nothing on some of the themes traversed on this groundbreaking and stereo shaking piece of album art. 'Why Walk A Dog" takes on all forms of animal cruelty for the vegan generation without petting or pandering as Jack preaches, "Are you their master?/Did you buy them at the store?/Did they know they were a cure/For you to stop being bored?/So somebody mated them/And took their babies away from them/Stuck a price tag on their nose/And now you’re buying it clothes" with bitter bite we should all heed more than bark about.
After the 'Abulia and Akrasia' spoken-word interlude like 'Ezmerelda Steals The Show' the hyper 'Hypermisophoniac' keeps the motor running for the 'Motor City' Detroit kid in the same rock and rolling vein. Whilst the licked strings of 'Ice Station Zebra' continue the coldest singles streak of White, matched with his animalistic lyrics aimed to claw away at both the competition and the corperation that thinks it's running things. "Everything in the world gets labeled a name/A box, a rough definition, unaffordable/Who picked the label doesn't want to be responsible/Truth, you're the one who needs the keys to the prison/You create your own box, you don't have to listen/To any of the label makers, printing your obituary" he wearily warns with industry scathe. Before rejoicing and celebrating with us that, "Everyone creating is a member of the family/Passing down genes and ideas in harmony" lyrics that couldn't sign, seal and deliver the meaning of this envelope pushing album further. After a cautionary commercial like opening of fifties sensibilities, 'Everything You've Ever Learned' rocks like its 'Respect Commander follow up as White yearns, "Every single thing about this situation/Says I can't be wrong/And every time she gets her satisfaction/I want her to control me all night long". The sonic song beautiful, but in the heart brutual blues continue with the play to the collection, church organ orchestration of 'What's Done Is Done' following the funky Parliament ode to 'Get In The Mind Shaft'. But it's the timeless, time goes by, last goodbye of 'Humoresque' that at its most beautiful brings this collection to a complete close. White or even the Beatle/Rolling Stone rock and roll genius and king of the modern days closest contemporary have never wrote lyrics as potently poetic or as pure as this, "Over the air, you gently float/Into my soul, you strike a note/Of passion with your melody". In chorus with the heartfelt hook of, "Sunbeams are playing/Flowers and trees are swaying/Captured within your magic spell/If the children are dancing/Lovers are all romancing/Is it any wonder, everyone is singing?" Showing that just like countrys own Hall of Fame's Johnny Cash's 'Forever Words' lyrics and prose, behind ever rock star from the Man in Black to this man of White is a heart and soul, not made of granite, but gratitude. In a divisive already 2018 where we need music to help and heal aswell as point fingers and direction we can't help but be thankful for that Springsteen blue collar like human touch. Something that knows how low our blues can be, but soulfully rocks with us and takes us higher, from a maverick raconteur of a man who has earned his stripes. After all aren't you just as bored with regular music as you would be just staying in the house all day watching that same television? Then this one will reach. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
