ELEPHANT by THE WHITE STRIPES (2003, XL Recordings)

Distant classic or just another Jack White LP. To be fair there's been a lot since Elephant. Seven to my count. Two more Stripes. Two Dead Weathers. Two Raconteurs (the second criminally ignored) and now Blunderbuss his first solo album.  Plus there’s all that of tinkering he's done for the likes of Loretta Lynn, Electric Six as well as running is own label blah blah blah. A veritable garage blues renaissance man and busy boy.

I like the White Stripes. The whole visual package is as important as the music. Sartorial cool should be as vital to any band as the music. It’s hard to get right. You need only look at Coldplay as to how horribly wrong these fashioned ‘looks’ can go, lurching from Post-Modern French Revolutionaries to day-glo cyber punk sportswear. Naff. But Jack and Meg proved there's nothing wrong with a well chosen, tight colour palette. Pick your look well and can last you for 6 albums and 12 years.

It help Jack can play guitar like a wizard and looked like a total dude. If I’m honest I’m not really sure what Meg other than bat away at her drums like a drowning child trying to keep afloat. But that was all part of their low-fi sonic charm and that whole wife/sister was kind of curious for a while too.

But the music backed up the facade. Scuzzy garage blues with flashes of punk and grunge. It's not original of course. Jack White had blatantly stolen the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion songbook, given it a good ol’ polish and dressed it all up in snazzier togs.

But to be fair to White, Jon Spencer could never craft such classic tunes. For as well as the crunchy garage blues and Stooges punk thrashes, Jack White also has a well of seemingly throw-away inane pop songs that are infuriatingly catchy (‘My Doorbell’ anyone). He also has this amazing ability to dash off ditties so simple that you'd think they were old standard you should have been singing since nursery school, think ‘Little Ghost’, ‘Hotel Yorba’ and Elephant's very own ‘It's True That We Love One Another’.

So Back to Elephant. Sure we hear Seven Nation Army on XFM a fair bit but what else is on it. The other singles were ‘Hardest Button to Button’ (great video by Michel Gondry) their inspired cover of Bacharach & David's ‘I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself’ and (according to Wiki) ‘There’s No Room for you Here’

It’s an absolute belter with some utterly thrilling moments. Imagine Howling Wolf channeling Iggy & the Stooges and Bleach-era Nirvana. Sloppy, scuzzy, dirty blues. Opening with Seven Nation Army suggests the menace and danger to come. That throbbing bass indicating the forthcoming horrors almost like John Williams opening them to Jaws. And then the manic attack of Black Math. Without a doubt my favourite track. Exhilarating. The Bacharach cover is just downright sleazy. The song made memorable our soulful Dusty sullied by a strip-joint bar-band. And then we get to the 12 bar blues of ‘Ball and Biscuit’, a nasty pissed off slurry drunk of a song which staggers on for a delirious 7 minutes. Before we lurch into ‘Little Acorns’ (the most Bleach like track for my money), the  dizzying ‘The Air Near My Fingers’ and the cheeky little ditty ‘...We Love One Another’ in which Jack duets with Meg and Holly Golightly.

As alt blues rock punk albums by band who dress in two-tone. It’s really rather good. And I think, their best moment.

Oh and some other little bits of triv for you... The shape created between Meg and Jack is an elephants head. The album’s is apparently a concept album about the “death of the american sweetheart” (not getting this yet). And Elephant, just like every Stripes album, includes one track with the word Little in the title, ‘Little Acorns’. And all in all, it’s sweet as a nut.