Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#3 The White Stripes, WHITE BLOOD CELLS

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vs.

#67 Mogwai, ROCK ACTION

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To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [[email protected]] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.

We have three Designated Cheerleaders today! The first is for WHITE BLOOD CELLS, and it’s from @laurenoneal.bsky.social. Take it away, Lauren!

It’s barely an exaggeration to say that I would not have survived high school without the White Stripes. I owned every album (plus a burned CD of B-sides I downloaded from Kazaa because I didn’t have access to limited-release vinyl), and I listened to them as obsessively as only a teenager can, memorizing every word, every note, every transition from one track to the next.

Now that my frontal lobe is fully formed, I can articulate what it is I love so much about the White Stripes, which is the way they strike the perfect balance between so many pairs of opposing elements: 

• the rawness of the music vs. the theatricality of dressing up in color-schemed costumes

• the virtuosity of the guitar playing vs. the simplicity of the drums

• the reverence for the blues/rock tradition vs. the ambition to take the world by storm with something exciting and fresh

• Jack White being a huge nerd vs. the fact that the thing he’s a nerd about (rock and roll) is very cool

Essentially, The White Stripes are in this paradoxical sweet spot, equal parts unsophisticated garage band and savvy art-school project. (The title of their previous album, DE STIJL, hints at this, referencing a Dutch art movement that used simple elements and primary colors to create work that was nonetheless abstract and conceptual.) 

But as a teenager, I didn’t think of it in those terms. I just felt like this music was what it sounded like inside my brain. My brain sounded like pounding drums and screaming guitars. WHITE BLOOD CELLS is the album I played in my car at age sixteen when I got my license and drove by myself for the first time. To me it will always sound like being kind of a child vs. being kind of an adult, being newly independent vs. still being quite dependent.

As an adult rapidly approaching middle age, I no longer need daily WHITE BLOOD CELLS transfusions to live, but I remain a huge fan. I have this poster above my couch and this poster in my kitchen, so Jack and Meg are always watching over me.

In our current political hellscape, I feared that Jack White, who holds what could be called “traditional values” in such high esteem when it comes to aesthetics, might get sucked into the MAGAverse. (After all, the Black Keys went from playing benefits for Obama to playing a show called “America Loves Crypto.”) 

I needn’t have worried. White is now on Instagram posting anti-Trump rants every few days, and when Stephen Colbert hosted a public access show in Michigan the day after government censorship ended The Late Show, White acted as musical director, interlocutor, and chili dog sharer. And so, in honor of Colbert sucking helium from a tank before singing “Fell in Love with a Girl,” I believe we must all do our part to support democracy by voting for WHITE BLOOD CELLS.

Thank you, Lauren!

Next up, for ROCK ACTION, it’s @sauril.bsky.social. Take it away, Mark!

Mogwai's third album proper - the somewhat ironically named Rock Action - followed 1999's Come On Die Young, which for the most part continued the sound of their debut. Rock Action takes steps into new instrumentation for the band with keyboards, synths, loops and strings adding to their legendarily ferocious guitars and monumental build ups.

It also has some of the most beautiful songs they have ever written, with “Take Me Somewhere Nice” probably being the most popular. Arpeggiated guitars, lush strings, and thoughtful percussion back Stuart Braithwaite as he sings of “Spaceships over Glasgow” (which became the title of his memoir) in a languid piece in 6/4 that doesn’t rush anywhere, taking almost a full 2 minutes to get to the vocals. The absolutely lovely “Dial:Revenge”, with its interweaving acoustic and electric guitars, background vocalizations and soaring strings, provides a backdrop for the lead vocals (in Welsh!) from Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys and includes an actual (mellow) guitar solo.

There are a few interstitial songs that have some interesting ideas as well, and of course a classic 8-minute build and release the band is known for (“You Don’t Know Jesus”), but the centerpiece of this record is “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong”, which starts with a simple repeated figure on guitar that continues through almost all of the song’s 9+ minutes. As it builds and builds, other instruments come in and fade out - finishing with glitchy percussion and a host of interesting instrumentation for an outro that ends with some wordless singing, perfectly ending the track.

Mogwai is one of my favourite bands of all time, and while this isn’t the album I go back to the most, it is certainly worth your time for a full listen. Moving away from the bombast into quieter, more thoughtfully produced songs gave us a cohesive album that deserves to be paid attention to.

Oh, and if you want the bombast back, give a listen to the companion EP My Father My King. 20 minutes of fury. It’s great.

Thank you, Mark!

Last but not least, also for ROCK ACTION, it’s @locraen.bsky.social. Take it away, argle-bargle!

I didn't think I would have time to write this DC, and to be honest, I don't. At least, I don't have the time to write the essay that Rock Action deserves; it was, and remains, one of my favorite albums of 2001. But by golly, someone needs to defend the honor of post-rock (generally) and Rock Action (specifically) around here!

Let's start with the concession that Mogwai can be a bit of a one-trick pony. That said, it's a really swell (ahem) trick! Whereas the vast majority of amplified or electrified popular musick tends to pick a level of loudness and stick to it, Mogwai revels in seesawing dynamics between pianissimo, fortissimo, and back again. The opening track, "Sine Wave," demonstrates this about as perfectly as anything on Rock Action. Though, the album's zenith, "Two Rights Make One Wrong," is the apotheosis of the trick. Indeed, if I had to choose one song to answer the question, "What is Mogwai's deal?" this might be the best example in their whole oeuvre. We get the full spectrum from cascading guitats and curated noise all the way to a soft outro with banjo. So, if you only have time to listen to one song on this album, make it that one. If you can listen to it while also participating in a kinetic activity like running wind sprints with the volume dialed up to eleven, so much the better.

But look, even Mogwai would likely admit that a whole album that's nothing more than swells, crescendos, retreats, and decrescendos would wear out its welcome pretty quickly. In fact, Rock Action is far more restrained in this respect than the band's previous two outings. Thus, contrary to the album's titular promise, most of the tracks here are actually slowed down, subdued affairs that provide a vital counterweight to the first, fifth, and seventh tracks' more dynamic excesses. Without these slow-burns, the songs that reach fortissimo wouldn't have nearly the impact. Some of them even have vocals! Why, on the album's fourth track, "Dial: Revenge," we even get an encore from Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, featured earlier this very week, singing in his native Welsh. Fun!

Altogether then, Rock Action provides a lively jaunt through dynamic contrasts whose 40-minute run time zooms right by. I'm a fan of Dan Bejar and his Destroyer schtick, but his loquacious musings on Streethawk- sung almost entirely at mezzo-forte, mind you are far less interesting than what Mogwai was doing in 2001. If the brackets ever make it to 2006, I will enthusiastically join you in voting for the outstanding Destroyer's Rubies over the more pedestrian Mr Beast, to name one possible future matchup. But this time around, Rock Action deserves your vote!

Thank you, argle-bargle!

Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.

Yesterday, #23 Drive-By Truckers, SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA defeated #42 Ladytron, 604, 117-111.

Thanks,

Kent