Jack White - What The ....

Got it on pre-order. Can't wait!

I think anything Jack White has done is in severe need of a guitarist.

There are musicians whose music I don't care for but their abilities to play are unquestioned.(e.g., Micheal Hedges.)

There are musicians whose music I like a lot, but I don't consider them great players (e.g., Neil Young.)

White's music does nothing for me, which is a matter of opinion, but how he garnered a reputation as a "great" guitarist is completely unexplainable.  He's never played a lick that I heard that I thought was impressive, or even exceptionally musical.  I have tried multiple times to "get" where he obtained this reputation, and I just cannot see it.  As a guitarist he is pedestrian at best.  You can go out to clubs on any weekend in any town and find multiple guys no one has heard of that are more skilled than he.

That's the great thing about all this though Doc. There's no right or wrong answer, no right or wrong opinions (except for mine, which are always 100%, absolutely, completely, definitively right ).

I think Neil Young is a magnificent guitar player - especially when he straps on Old Black. Jack White is even better. But JW is not a "tasteful" guitar player like Mark Knoplfer (that god), he's primal, fiery; his licks aren't clean, they're full of distortion and drama. If you don't get him, then fair enough, but you're missing out, let me tell you!

Michael Hedges, Earl Klugh and post-Cream Clapton are all "great guitarists" in one (a technical?) sense, but they're all pretty snoozeworthy.

One of the greatest guitarists of all time is Steve Cropper, and a more minimal/understated player you would struggle to find. But he blows flash gits like Bonamassa or  Vai out of the water.

Hi Kevin:

Speaking as a guitarist myself, what I am saying about Neil is that he is not a highly skilled guitarist, e.g., he does not do much (if anything) that you wonder "can I even physically play that?"  But he is saying a lot.  At the other end of the spectrum for me is Hedges, who is technically amazing, but his music says, well, not much, at least to me.  (My brother, also a guitarist, went to see him once, and said he felt like he could walk into and out of the concert and not have missed anything.)

My point in bringing up Young was that I get that you don't have to be a "shredder" to be someone I enjoy on the guitar.  Young is a musician who uses a guitar to convey his music...but he is not a "great" guitarist.  He is a great musician and song writer.

My gripe with Black is that he is revered as a highly skilled guitarist, even a guitar god, and I not only don't think his music is that good (again, just not my cup of tea), but I think he does what he does because he is a weak guitar player...even a crappy one.  How this disconnect took place I cannot fathom.  If he was just doing his thing and people liked it I probably wouldn't even notice, but when people started raving about this guy as a guitarist and I listened it was a classic "WTF?" moment.

To me, he is akin to the painter who opens cans of paint and splashes them against a big canvas, and then people are oohing and aahing about how deep and innovative it is, and all I can think is "My 8 year old niece can do that..."

In an effort to remove my age from the equation, I have even asked younger guitarists I know - a number have said they don't get it.  Others are like "well, he's real innovative."  Granted - the video above demonstrates that.  None of them have defended him as a great guitarist.

I have on more than one occasion, I have gone to a concert that made me feel like I should burn all my guitars in a bonfire when I got home, in an homage of "I am not worthy."  I think after seeing Jack White I would come home and try to sleep with them.

On this, it's an interesting one. I studied art history at university and I presume you are talking about Jackson Pollock here. One of the interesting things about JP ("Jack the Dripper") is that nobody has really been able to replicate what he does, because recreating his mature style requires enormous amounts of skill, planning, compositional ability and control. His best pictures, like a lot of post-war jazz, look spontaneous and random, but they really aren't.

The great Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879 - 1940) was often accused of painting like a child - he always took it as a great compliment. A critic once said to him that his six-year-old daughter could have painted that picture, to which Klee is supposed to have said: "I am not yet good enough to be able to paint like your six year old"; as a side note, it is extremely unlikely that any but the most prodigiously gifted child would be able to paint as well as Klee (or Pollock), but that's not the point.

And that, Kevin is why you own his stuff, and I don't. 

I really have tried to listen to his stuff on more than one occasion, and as indicated above have sought out explanation and clarification, but it just hasn't resonated.

I do not know this to be fact, but I have found that many of these "abstract" artists (speaking of you reference to Pollock), even though they do what they do, can actually draw/paint things we would recognize quite well.  They could have been more "traditional" artists had they gone that way.  (And died in anonymity with far less money - lol.)  I truly believe that there is much on the guitar that White is literally physically incapable of playing.

But I have given it my best shot over a fair period of time in case I was really missing out something.  I remain convinced that I am not.

Enjoy your new music when it comes!

I'll say.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't think JW is a genius..

Couldn't understand the "Three Rock Legends" heading for the "It Might Get Loud" documentary. The term "legend" is used a bit too loosely in my opinion.

I'm not a fan,  I've often thought he's one of the extreme stylists at being cool.  His rock irritated me.

But I'm 60 and cranky, when I go to Amoeba on Sunset I come home feeling so boring and normal, to tatts, piercings or strange hair.  But I have a very colorful mind having been a teen in the 60s.

Old men rule!

Looks like many people voted with their wallet.

Lazaretto hits the No.1 on Billboard this week.

Like the Stripes, like Jack, listen primarily to my LP12.  No way was I going to let that crazy vinyl get anywhere near my Kandid.  

Passed on it and bought the CD instead. Let the KDS have a go at it