1st April - The White Stripes' Elephant

Artist – Album: The White Stripes - Elephant

Released:  1^st April 2003

Sounds Like: Fools Gold

The White Stripes first rose to prominence in 1997, when the Amish ghost couple Meg & Jack Van White finished as runners up in the talent show America’s Got Singing. Despite only finishing second to the irrepressible Aqua, critics and the audience were taken in by their ancient garage blues rock (as well as Jack’s wonderful carpentry performed in between songs).

Naming themselves The White Stripes as they are the duo’s favourite bits of a zebra, they liked the name so much that they also called their first album it. They would have liked to have named all of their albums similarly, but were eventually talked down by their record label. ‘De Stijl’ (in English, ‘the stilt’) and ‘White Blood Cells’ followed, and cemented the groups reputation as one of the finest rock bands around.

Elephant, their fourth album, took the two-piece to another level as songs like ‘Seven Nation Army’ and ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself’ stormed up the charts, and ‘The Hardest Button to Button’ was named influential actor George Takei’s favourite song of the week. The latter is a good example of the themes investigated in the record – set during the Second World War, it’s follows the story of the German scientists who worked to develop the world’s most difficult fastener in a ploy to distract the Allied Forces.

Not really, April Fools!

It’s just an utterly brilliant album, one of the best of the last decade. Go find out.

Albumaday... rating:   10/10

1.       Seven Nation Army – 3:52

2.       Black Math – 3:04

3.       There’s No Home for You Here – 3:44

4.       I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself – 2:46

5.       In the Cold, Cold Night – 2:58

6.       I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart – 3:21

7.       You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket – 3:40

8.       Ball and Biscuit – 7:19

9.       The Hardest Button to Button – 3:32

10.   Little Acorns – 4:09

11.   Hypnotize – 1:48

12.   The Air Near My Fingers – 3:40

13.   Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine – 3:18

14.   Well It’s True That We Love One Another – 2:43

Listen to ‘The Air Near My Fingers’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_xbEMC8lHM

Also released on the 1^st April:

1976: Rush – 2112

Also released on the 1^st April:

2008: The Black Keys – Attack & Release