Fine, Jack White, just take my damn credit card already.
I already own the White Stripes' excellent 1999 self-titled debut, which I bought on CD when the Stripes hit it big in the early 2000s. I bought it again in 2010, when White reissued it on limited edition red-and-white vinyl, and made my twin brother drive to Detroit to pick it up from a secret pop-up location because I had to go to work. And now it looks like I have to give Jack White even more of my money.
But I will.
Third Man Records announced a lavish 20th anniversary box set in honor of the fateful LP that introduced Jack and Meg White to the world as part of its Vault subscription service. The collection was mixed by White at his Nashville Third Man Studios and includes an LP of a live show in Raleigh, a DVD of two 1999 performances at the former Paycheck's and the Magic Stick, and previously unheard session outtakes from the era — including a cover of Burt Bacharach's "My Little Red Book," which you can listen to here. It also includes a 24-page booklet of archival material.
The deadline to sign up is midnight on Oct. 31. The package is $60, which is now leaving my bank account and going directly into Jack White's giant bank account. Dammit.
While we wait for delivery, it's a good time to revisit The White Stripes' very-first review on Amazon (five stars), which almost sounds like it could have been written by Lester Bangs from beyond the grave.
I'm sure this guy feels vindicated:
It just amazes me that no one else has anything to say about this record. It's been out for MONTHS and its so damn good it makes a man cry just to get thinkin' about it. The blur, the flash and dazzle, the White Stripes, baby, THE WHITE STRIPES!!! Honestly, I'd never so much as heard of these folkz affore I got lissened to the L.P. in a record store a couple months ago. (Fallout Records, Seattle, WA. Give them all your money. Come down from Vancouver to buy U-Men records. Call them on the phone and act retarded.) "THE WHITE STRIPES," the nice record store lady said. A mysterious, somewhat sinister two-piece that comes to you via the impeccable taste and unflagging dedication of Long Gone John and his SYMPATHY FOR THE RECORD INDUSTRY label. What we got here is a boy, a girl, a guitar, a rudimentary drumkit, and a Led Zeppelin fixation like the Aswad High Dam. You take all that, you stuff it through the rama-lama-fa-fa-fa with more cheap speed than a normal ninth-grader can handle and you will most definitely get you somma that WHITE STRIPES. I mean, you will get you some wailing, banging, sex-starved, all-American ACCIONE DU ROCK like yer daddy done told you 'bout. Plus, that songwriting (read "riff architecture") is the doggone duck's mittens! (Like you're even gonna care, what with the gosh-darned rock-n-rolling they got all over this thing, but still...) The Stripes, like a lotta the new breed blooze punx, knows the value of them thar empty parts in between the cruncy bits. They got what the eggyheads like to call "Dynamics". It means that they can kinda lay back like a little kitty cat sometimes, affore they jump up and rock yer flabby ass all to hell. (I'm not talkin' about all that malajusted EMO sh!t either. Those folks ain't got "Dynamics", they's just not takin' their medication.) Whoo-ee, kids, I said "Dynamics". That's were you gotta be for the big millenium. That's what really sells it out in the cheap seats. If you still ain't got the drift, take a lissen to "The Big Three Killed My Baby", and let that school you on up. It's got something for the whole fambly!! Smartypants lyrix, swell dunderhead riffage, and that amazing Bon-Scott-choking-to-death-on-his-own-vomit VOICE. If Robert Plant coulda singed like that, Led Zeppelin might have even sold a few rekkids. The side-two opener (vinyl, baby, it's gotta be) "Broken Bricks" is likewise AOK, just a-buildin' and a hollerin' until it EXPLODES all over the place at the end like Ron Fugg'n Jeremy. AND they cover that Gin-U-Wine classic "St. James Infirmary Blues" without even screwing it up. Just pie-ano, vocals, and a long blue line of cold chills. Spooky-ooky, baby. I dunno, there isn't a whole lot more I can say about The White Stripes, and I'm stretching my powers of observation as it is. Honestly, if you don't already dig this strain of hingeless gutter spew, the White Stripes won't convert you. BUT if you like it neat, cheap, and served in a dirty glass, the. WHITE STRIPES gonna set you up fine.
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