#579 The Best Album of 2001, Round 4 Match #119: The White Stripes vs. Kylie Minogue
Hey folks!
Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:
#3 The White Stripes, WHITE BLOOD CELLS
vs.
#19 Kylie Minogue, FEVER
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 dueling Designated Cheerleaders today! First up, for WHITE BLOOD CELLS, it’s @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!
Then, for FEVER, it’s @bickley.bsky.social. Take it away, Chris!
Sumptuous. That’s the word that perfectly summarises Love at First Sight, the third single from Kylie Minogue’s sparkling album Fever. It was an album and batch of singles that helped the singer reclaim her pop throne, after a decade of hesitant indie dalliance yielding only modest successes. But you don’t become the biggest popstar in the world by being modest, you must be bombastic. And 00s Kylie was exactly that.
The signs of her forthright confidence were there on 2000’s Light Years, spearheaded by the discoid Spinning Around, her first number one anywhere in six years. A year later, and Minogue was truly strutting her stuff as Can’t Get You Out of My Head, In Your Eyes, Love at First Sight, and Come into My World made waves around the globe. They were all stellar singles, but it was Love at First Sight that shone brightest.
The early 00s were a haven for undisputable bangers, whirlwinding around the French house scene. Minogue may have been an Antipodean, but she and her team knew their stuff. You can hear the light, chiming riffs of Modjo’s Lady (Hear Me Tonight), the fusion of Daft Punk’s analogue and digital sounds, and the pulsing, bongo-driven beat of Groovejet, so while Love at First Sight may have dipped its toes in a number of musical pools, the result was authentic. Minogue wasn’t just parking up in this territory, she was here to conquer it.
Minogue was held up as a sex symbol during this era of her career, but this song is more reflective of a love symbol, not a temptress. Her words in the other singles are sultry, flirtatious and they lust: “Boy your lovin’ is all I think about”, “I’ve been watching you lately, I want to make it with you”, “Take these lips that were made for kissing”. But there’s a satisfying innocence to Love at First Sight, a song drowning in butterflies and giddiness.
Pop is best when it is simple, and brimming with positivity. In the ears of some, Minogue’s tale of blissful happiness may be trite, but it’s impossible to claim that it’s not infectious. Her vocals stride with an unrelenting pleasure that could convert any Kylie-naysayer into a bonafide pilgrim in four minutes’ time. There’s no shame in this, Love at First Sight is simply pop perfection.
It's paint-by-numbers pop, but when the execution is this good, what's the problem? It doesn't matter whether something's made by one guy in their bedroom, or with dozens of suits surrounding a mixing board. It sculpted the pop landscape and whilst there are duds, there's enough spicy album tracks like Love Affair to override the nagging notion that only the singles are worth it. Burning Up is an odd closer in that it's all flicker and no flame, but at least the album hasn't been frontloaded so that it's a pleasant listen throughout.
https://musicisalright.wordpress.com/2021/06/07/kylie-minogue-love-at-first-sight/links:
Modjo, "Lady (Hear Me Tonight)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfxI3r_LyA
Daft Punk, "Digital Love" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxzBvqY5PP0
The Groovejet link is unavailable in the U.S.
Thank you, Chris!
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 #7 Gorillaz, GORILLAZ, 147-143-2.
Thanks,
Kent
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