The White Stripes
"Icky Thump"
;)
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Critics of the White Stripes (and I don't just mean the paid ones) like to wonder what Jack White would sound like with a "real" drummer behind him. But I doubt even a conservatory-trained jazzbo could duplicate the way Meg White wanders off the beat in the middle of "Icky Thump," the available-for-download first single from the Stripes' forthcoming album (due June 19). Anchored by monster riffs topped with wobbly stylophone solos, the song finds Jack, hung over and head-injured, waking up south of the border with a "redheaded señorita" who plies him with sugar and rum and then robs him blind. The song stumbles on its legs like a bird leaving the nest, sections crashing into each other like a building collapsing in reverse. Underneath the roiling surface is a veiled parable of U.S.-Mexico relations (and an outright swipe at American xenophobes), but the song's musical turmoil is so engrossing, it hardly matters what it says.
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