At the turn of the century, music got really sedate, the only videos getting played on MTV (when they played music videos) were bland teen pop or crappy rap-rock songs. It took something truly innovative to get noticed. Enter Fell in Love with a Girl and its Lego inspired music video which busted through the monotony of everything else in heavy rotation. Even better was that accompanying song by The White Stripes was great even without the awesome visuals. And though the strict adherence to only two instruments per song (so they would be able to play them as is live in concert) and a red, white, and black color palate, could have pegged the duo as a one hit wonder, but none listen to the album White Blood Cells, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, showed they were much more than a gimmick.
The White Stripes were blues rock at its finest. Though most of their songs clocked in at less than three minutes, Jack White was able to pump at least one great guitar riff into each of them. The songs range from the down and gritty Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, to the delta blues of The Union Forever, to the quick and simple Meg stomping Little Room, to the poppy acoustic Hotel Yorba which just begs to be sun along with.
As great as Fell in Love with a Girl is, the best track on the album just may be We’re Going to Be Friends. With just Jack and his acoustic guitar, he sings of a simpler time when worrying about the first day of school was your biggest problem. But it is also a day were you meet new friends that can last a lifetime. The song should be included in every graduation mix from now until the end of time. As The White Stripes showed, the simplest can also sometimes be the best.
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