Jack White: Boarding House Observations

 You can't review everything. 

It's a weird feeling to have, especially because I don't think anyone thinks to prepare you for it. There's some media outlets that try to subvert the entire concept of Metacritic by refusing to engage with it and its numerical necessity. You can still tell where those reviews would land on a numerical scale. You have people trying to discount reviews because of bias as well. I still end up seeking out reviews because I have my own biases I can compare against. So to be faced with an album that somehow seems to exist outside critique is almost jarring. Do I like Boarding House? I...I just don't know, and I have a hard time taking anyone seriously that has an answer.

That doesn't mean there isn't stuff that can be said of the album. It is a DIFFICULT album, making things like Kid A, Nabuma Rubberband, Vespertine, sound like radio pop. Those albums can be generously labeled as taking a listener on a less traveled, more scenic path. Boarding House is the beast in those woods. What are its intentions? Only Jack White knows. And now he's caught the beast and released it in your house.

And who can blame him? Rocking out to Seven Nation Army now feels like a meme and The Black Keys ruined the fun with their lemonade-for-the-masses version of Jack's pastiche. It's hard to feel proud of what you're doing if it's hard to be taken seriously anymore. At the same time, that's always what was going to happen. Breaking barriers is what the Beatles did, and depending on who you talk to, breaking barriers is just code for "original but not yet good".

It's just as easy to imagine that Jack White was just bored, or realized he had become complacent. After Icky Thump, I think White hit his stride with The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs both releasing incredible albums. For my money, Counselors of the Lonely is still the gold standard for what it means to truly rock. Then, faced with going his own way, it didn't seem like there was as much fun being on his own. 

From this perspective, it's hard to blame White for releasing this animal of an album. There's little grooming that could even be attempted with this collection of songs, and White seems to embrace this. Organs, pianos, vocals, drums, timing, all seems to have this sense of wrongness to it. Much of his career has been built on an undertone of general disrespect, and that now includes songcraft, genres, and even the listener. Any hate, or praise, you have for the flat production, the sour notes, exerpts from preachy apologies, actual squealing, all seems to not even be noticed by this beast. 

White himself comes off as disrespectful to the listener, and that's nothing new for him (or honestly any musician. Remember Volcano from Beck?). White once said his iconic plastic guitar squeals and hums horribly, and you have to pick a fight with it. He's at his best when he sounds like the bell just rung to start round six, and damn if he doesn't sound like he's fighting his opponent, himself, the ref, his coach, the announcers, and the ring itself. Threatening to buy up land and start an army, reminding everyone that nobody is on a creative island, references to Sisyphus, questioning the concept of pets, there's little anyone can do to calm him down. So much of what he's saying is authentic, observant, and if not fresh, just more rare than it ought to be. These are the themes, production, and music craft that everyone says makes the White Stripes so good. When presented without the hand-holding of accessible melodies, though, the discomfort listeners will have is expected. I can almost hear White saying "This is what you asked for! And now it's too much for you?" 

If the entire thing were so raw, angry, and impenetrable, it would be easier to have that overall opinion of the album. There would be a sense that it was crafted to be antagonistic, like so much screamo and metal. Instead, White has released a beast in your house and, understandably, cannot be in control of what it does next. These songs don't feel manufactured as much as they feel alive--pretty, ugly, interesting, and terrifying as that can be. Nothing was done to make them more fit for a dog show, because again, this is a wild animal. 

Over and Over is among the more cohesive tracks, as is Hypersymphomaniac both presenting a Jack White we are far more accustomed to. Ice Station Zebra has been weirdly singled out for featuring rap, but spoken word is nothing new. Corporation? Get in the Mind Shaft? Even Ice Station Zebra is full of sounds, styles, genres that White seems to tolerate more than instruct. Long stretches of sparse jams and squealing, beeps and boops, jazzy piano diddies that turn into stabbed chords. I shudder to think what was deemed too annoying for the album.

Further still, this music can sound playful or even relaxing at times. There's solace in Abulia and Akrasia, Why Walk a Dog?, and Ezmerelda Steals the Show, but it never lets you feel like it's comfort that will last. True doohickeys play their own tunes at random (or maybe in time), and voices change from angry to comically inflated. Is this what I wanted from David Bowie when I first listened to him? I'm certain his old pal Klaus Nomi would have approved.

Rap isn't the only unorthodox presentation from White this time either. Respect Commander and Hypersimphomaniac clip together instruments and sounds, not like Alt-J or Radiohead, but like Department of Eagle's first album The Cold Nose, leaning hard into collage. Is it working? I cannot begin to guess. Do I like it? Maybe? On the other hand, I can say for sure I'm a fan of  a very Gorillaz inclusion with Get in the Mind Shaft, which flits and buzzes in ways I ache to hear refined. Tempting as that is, part of me thinks any refinement might lose more than it adds.

You gotta take the easy with the difficult--the sensible needs the contrast of the nonsense. I wouldn't call it refreshing, but it feels necessary for music like this to be made. When you hear something different different, you begin to notice more things in all music. It might sound like I'm huffing Jack White paint, defending an objectively bad misfire of an experimental album. But there's enough cohesiveness in the more chaotic songs to make me question my disgust, and enough chaos in the cohesive songs to make me question my enjoyment. This is an album that makes me question if I'm being snobbish whether I label it good or bad, and that's fascinating to me. 

If you're looking for a review, that's about as close as you can get. You should listen to this, not because it's good or bad, but because you'll learn how to question things more. If there's anything that Jack White should be praised for with this project, it's that he has made an exploded diagram of music that can be labeled and studied. You can hear the inner workings of music in this method.

But in terms of quality, it's better to just shrug; there's no taming this beast, and it's going to do what it will. We can observe it, question its intention, and even begin to understand some of its machinations. We can learn from it. But you best keep your distance, for this is a beast in your house. You can't expect it to act like a human.