LegendaryMonkey: Alllllbert! Alberto! Stop practicing your goose-stepping or whatever it is you're doing and pay attention. I've got a brand new spin on the revolution and you're going to love it.
Generalissimo Alberto: Hush up, womanchild. The people need to see us stepping tall and looking proud.
LM: No! They need — well, maybe it's more we need... anyway, vox populi, my friend! We've not been paying attention. If we really want to elevate Jack and Meg as the one... er, two True Saviors of Music — and perhaps the world — then we must turn to the people. And we need to sing. And what White Stripes song do the people love to sing?
"Hotel Yorba"
White Blood Cells, 2002
LM: "Hotel Yorba" is a staple at live shows because it's one of the most beloved of all the White Stripes catalogue. It's a happy-fun song with country rhythms that, along with "Now Mary," a later track from the same album, helped to pave the way for later White Stripes songs like "Little Ghost." If "Hotel Yorba" wasn't as popular as it is, I doubt we'd have seen that song... but I'm getting off track. We're going to join hands and strum guitars--
GA: At the same time?
LM: Uh, no. I guess that does present something of a difficulty. Well, some will strum guitars and some will join hands, but we're all going to sing "Hotel Yorba."
GA: Have you been in my medicine cabinet again? Best be careful which bag of dope you pull out of my jacket, little Monkey Mia.
LM: Your meds have nothing to do with this. It's strategery, y'know? It worked in the sixties! Flower power and Dylan... "Blowin' in the Wind" and rolling stones and free love as a cleansing tonic for the mind and soul. The music moved the people and the people cried for change. Throughout our movement, we've been talking about music, and we've been talking about change, but we forgot to use the music to bring about the change. And "Hotel Yorba" is a very Dylan-esque song, and it's popular, so why not start there?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Guppusmaximus
Wow... You really put alot of work into an article covering crappy music. I think they should lend you their name and you can get credit for actually doing something worthwile.
Saviours of Music and the world?? Maybe people will remember that when they get The White Stripes catalogue from some dude at a garage sale 10 years from now...
Not to be a prick, Just gotta give my feedback:-)
2 - Christopher Rose
Guppusmaximus: It's a well known fact that Ms Karabinus and Mr Barger have an inexplicable obsession with this most tedious of novelty duos.
Frankly, The Captain and Tennille are more artistic and interesting...
3 - Alisha Karabinus
Careful there... while I fully support your right to speak out against the White Stripes, the Generalissimo is a-coming later and he doesn't approve of dissenters!
4 - DJRadiohead
Christopher Rose has apparently never seen a couple of muskrats get busy... it is worthy of balladry and reverential hymns.
Continue to preach the word to the unclean masses. Judgment is coming and I'm bringing hell with me.
5 - Alisha Karabinus
Shit, y'all... I got the DJ on my side. IT IS ON NOW.
6 - DJRadiohead
That's right... cue the video...
"Y'all don't know what it's like..." :)
7 - Christopher Rose
What's a muskrat? And how did we get there from lame pop duos?
8 - Alisha Karabinus
Good lawd! Those silly muskrats.
9 - DJRadiohead
You better know what you are talking about if you are going to toss out Captain and Tenille crackbacks.
10 - Alisha Karabinus
Preach it, Brother DJ! Galactic Overlord Rose, it's up against the wall with you.
11 - DJRadiohead
Maybe we can re-educatue Brother Rose before his generalship arrives. Then it will truly be too late for him.
12 - Christopher Rose
I know what I´m talking about with regard to The Weeners Suck!
13 - Alisha Karabinus
Pretty sure you lost your cred there, Chris-honey.
"What's a muskrat?" honestly....
14 - DJRadiohead
"The Weeners Suck!"
What was I thinking? He's got me convinced- convinced to let the General handle him.
I just queued up "Hotel Yorba." Jack has the answer:
"It might sound silly for me to think childish thoughts like these but I'm so tired of acting tough and I'm gonna do what I please..."
15 - DJRadiohead
If the muskrat ignorance didn't rob him of his cred, the "weeners" blast did.
16 - Christopher Rose
What a difference an ocean makes! C&T were nothing but lame one hit wonders in England, which still amounts to more than Tedious White Stains, and I've never even heard of a Muskrat, loved or otherwise.
Frankly, knowing as much about this lame duo as y'all do has removed all credibility from the sorry lot of you. Mine remains gloriously intact!
17 - DJRadiohead
Silly infidels.
For His judgment cometh, and that right soon.
18 - Alisha Karabinus
Okay, now this is just getting silly. Without checking yet, I'm going to take a wild stab and guess that the White Stripes have had more hit records in the UK than in the US, because I know that:
a) they credit most of their current success to the UK and Jack has said they'd be "nowhere" without their UK fanbase
b) I'm sure I've read that before
After checking, Wiki backs me up. Was the easiest resource to check, as I knew it had chart info. Their only #1 album is from the UK.
So... do you have any other FACTS to share there, Chris, my man?
19 - Christopher Rose
Yikes! Caught on a technicality. I looked it up and yes, Total Waste of Space have had more hits in the UK than Captain and Tennille. You got me there.
In mitigation, I should point out that all the Turgid Witless Slobs UK "hits" occurred after I emigrated and I just didn't know. It's so easy to have hits there these days. So glad to be in Spain now.
However, the technical inaccuracy of my throwaway remark in no way undermines my central point which is that both artists are lameass duos of an immensely dull nature. Only C&T dress and sing better, relatively speaking that is, they're not acctually cool, I just tried to think of a comparable duo.
Would you have preferred René and Renata? Shudders at memory...
20 - Alisha Karabinus
It's all just so much noise coming from a black hole now, dear Chris... I'm so sorry, but to operate in THIS democracy, you must be an informed agitator, not some random nooblet dribbling saliva from stretched and rubbery lips.
Still love ya, though. ;)
21 - DJRadiohead
That might be the sweetest, "Go fuck yourself" I have ever read.
22 - Alisha Karabinus
You really know how to compliment a girl, DJ.
23 - Christopher Rose
No actually, this is:-
Firstly, noise doesn't come out of a black hole, so your scientific inaccuracy trumps my unawareness of slight and scanty pop statistics generated by lightweight losers from the 70s or the 00s.
Secondly, I don't need to be deeply informed about pondlife to recognise it when I see it, in your 200 year old democracy or my 40 year old one. The very fact that you think that Turgid Weasel Saliva are in anyway important is a tribute to that cute old American egocentricity you're all so famous for. That and your grasp of international sports.
I still love you too though, as you'll see here soon-ish (woulda been done already but I couldn't let your foul slur go unchallenged!).
24 - Generalissimo Alberto
I see that the enemies of The People have come out of their spidey holes to take potshots. Guppusmaximus and Christophner Rose: Laugh it up, funny guys. Soon enough, you will face The People's Justice.
25 - Alisha Karabinus
Aww, Chris! You warm my heart. But sweetie... your attempt to out-science me is so cute! But you're just trying to distract from that fact that you are yammering bullshit every time you walk up in here. If you want the black hole reference to be more accurate and yet applicable, let's interpret it like so: there is knowledge around you and you absorb it, but it disappears, lost forever. It certainly doesn't seem to stick with you.
But whether or not I know a damned thing about science (really, I don't), I DO know that your remarks to the effect that we, as Americans, are being egotistical because some of us like the White Stripes have no bearing on this conversation at all. Y'see, the point I was making with the number of hit songs is not that Jack and Meg outsucceed Cap'n and Tennille or whoever, but rather, that it is due to the UK that they are successful at all because that's where most of their hits have been. So you're responsible, or your former homeland, and I thank you!
And THIS democracy, buddy-mine, is very young... WHITE STRIPES NATION was born when we began this column! You'd best be cute, 'cause you can't do math, either.
xoxo