Independent Perspective News

By JON PARELES

THE White Stripes know how to work a concept. From their self-titled debut album in 1999 to their new one, "Elephant" (Third Man/V2), they have laid claim to a perennial: the idea of Back to Basics, which has been the impetus behind punk rock, blues-rock and quite possibly rock 'n' roll itself. What could be more basic than the combination, in 1999, of Meg White's elementary drumbeat and Jack White's loud electric guitar, as he set loose a voice steeped in Elvis Presley, Elmore James and Robert Plant to wail, "Where do you want an explosion now?"

The eternal promise of Back to Basics is that it will strip away the layers of self-consciousness and cleverness that get in the way of direct communication. But transcending self-consciousness is harder than choosing three chords and a stomp. Four albums into their career, the White Stripes have varied the details while maintaining the concept. But they still haven't come up with many songs that simply explode like the music they love. Too often, the band ends up treating rock's primordial pleasures — the beat, the noise, the twang, the howl — as conceptual playthings.

The White Stripes, who are from Detroit, were a slow-building overnight sensation. In 2001, when they released their third album, "White Blood Cells," pop was in a desperate haze of boy bands and Britney Spears, all teetering past their peak. Suddenly, with the help of praise from England and a clever animated video clip, the duo's unadorned music was touted as a corrective to the studio fakery and songwriting by committee that made the Top 10 so numbing.

The uncluttered raunch of the band's sound was enough, for the moment, to distract listeners from the fact that most songs sagged about halfway through, and that the band's two-piece arrangements often sounded like rehearsal tapes. The White Stripes made their best music with other people's songs, like Robert Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene," or with other people's hooks, like the Pretenders' chorus (from "Middle of the Road") in "Fell in Love With a Girl."

Although there were countless garage-rock revivalists around the world, the White Stripes began to be treated as the standard-bearers, the band that would reclaim rock and purge it of excess and artifice. Excess, perhaps — the White Stripes have opened doors for other back-to-basics rockers, including duos like the Black Keys and the Kills. But artifice? No. They never promised otherwise. From the beginning, the White Stripes have been every bit as image-conscious as 'N Sync. For a while, they pretended to be brother and sister, until it was proved that they are actually a divorced couple (and that White was originally Meg's last name, not Jack's). They dress strictly in the Constructivist palette of red, white and black (matching their album covers and, when Jack is being particularly self-referential, various red-and-white items in his lyrics). Their second album was named "De Stijl," after the geometric, back-to-basics art movement of the early 20th century.

The duo's breakthrough video, "Fell in Love With a Girl," turned them into geometric Lego constructions: literal cartoons for MTV. Other clips have consistently portrayed Jack as a moody introvert with Meg as an enigmatic bystander. Onstage, a stolid Meg socks the drums as Jack makes his sweaty homage to Presley. They're careful to stay in character. The White Stripes never pretended to be roots-rock purists. They have always mashed together old slide-guitar blues and honky-tonk country with English and American rock from rockabilly through punk. On guitar, Jack can blare heavy-metal chords or play lean soul syncopations, fingerpick quietly or screech a distorted lead. His willfully irregular songs tend to defy blues and country structures, something he probably learned from old rural songs but applies in his own ways.

Jack spills over with words in both his lyrics and his free-associating liner notes; he can be inscrutable or knee-slapping funny: "I had opinions that didn't matter/ I had a brain that felt like pancake batter," he moans. And his singing borrows vocal fillips from a menagerie of eccentrics. He has enough mannerisms for half a dozen frontmen.

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