The air near my fingers (The White Stripes) (LP 4605)

The White Stripes  Elephant  (Vinyl, XL Records, 2003) ****  

Genre: Alt rock, blues rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (gift from Roger)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Seven Nation Army

Gear costume: The Hardest Button to Button, Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7

Active compensatory factors: Elephant is the fourth album by Meg and Jack White - The White Stripes. It's also my only album by them.

I'm not sure where it stands in their catalogue in terms of quality, but it sure has a big, impressive sound! Meg's drumming is probably not technically perfect, but she's perfect for The White Stripes and Jack is all over the album on vocals, guitars (and even does some piano).  

I haven't listened much to it, but relistening to it just now made me realise how much they were the Led Zeppelin of their time. They'd do a pretty cool version of In My Time of Dying for instance.

Where do they all belong? It's best listened to loud! More Jack White coming in the W's.

You took a white orchid turned it blue (The White Stripes) #550

The White Stripes Blue Orchid/ Though I Hear You Calling, I Will Not Answer  (Third Man Records, 2005)

I'm a relative late comer to the charms of Jack White - although I have a vinyl copy of Elephant, it's his solo albums and work The Raconteurs that I'm most fond of.

Having said that, Blue Orchid is a great riffola exercise that is perfectly complemented by wife Meg's crushing drum pounds and cymbal crashes.

Hidden gem: The blues are alive and well and living inside Jack and Meg White! 

Great B side - straight from the delta and not part of the Get Behind Me Satan album.

Gets extra gem status because of the raw record skips!