20 years later and no other intro line has been able to mimic the seismic impact of the opening chords on The White Stripes’ fourth LP. “Seven Nation Army” has become synonymous with major league stadiums as the backing music to defense chants and jeers toward opposing players, but there is something much deeper going on there. The pre-game anthem welcomed us to Elephant, a mystical carnival ride through the complex musicianship of the duo Jack and Meg White. Through 14 tracks, the group’s magnum opus still sounds as refreshing as it did 20 years ago. Everything down to the last bluesy strum of a guitar is meticulously crafted to fit exactly what the band had envisioned for the album, giving us a glimpse into the tireless process of creating an album as impactful as Elephant.
The Whites are perfectionists, it’s clear in their approach to creation. Every last detail of Elephant seems to have been toiled over for days upon days, each note sung having equal force and gusto behind it. The duo mixed the angsty textures of garage rock with the simplistic melancholy of the blues to land on this perfect blend of balladry and thrashing guitar sections. This fusion style could have only been done correctly by artists like The White Stripes, a boardless force that refuses to put their name to anything they don’t find exciting and new. Elephant dips in and out of the duo’s many influences and does so in a way that blurs the lines between eras of music, all of this filtered through the mindful process of The White Stripes.
The album is structured in a way that allows each moment to breathe, there is no rushing to the singles because everything in between is equally as jaw-dropping. Even during slow burners like “In The Cold, Cold Night” continues to build on the undeniably infectious energy of the more rock-centered tracks like “Black Math”. Elephant weaves in and out of tempos and tones with confident ease, so confident you begin to question if there is some sort of facade being put on. It’s quite the opposite actually, that confidence stems from the sonic achievements of the LP. On paper, these many different moods shouldn’t flow together as smoothly as they do with the two main genres that are focused on coming from two separate worlds. The White Stripes can deconstruct garage rock and blues to their bare bones and use the pieces left behind to build a sonic universe that is their own to play in.
It’s hard to find a flaw in Elephant. The 14 songs that make up the tracklist have aged like wine and 20 years later it still feels like the first time hearing it every single time. The White Stripes crafted a refreshing take on the modern rock scene of the early 2000s that redefined what genre-bending can sound like. “Seven Nation Army” might be forever associated with sports but that does not take away from the creative leaps taken throughout its home album, an album that will forever hold a place as one of the most important records of its time.