Jack White in Our Faces Again

Supposed creative genius Jack White has announced the release of his next solo album, Boarding House Reach, for Friday, March 23 via Third Man/Columbia Records. This marks the third full-length solo record and the first new studio album for the 12-time Grammy Award-winner and megalomaniac in nearly four years. Has it really been that long? Jack White is such an attention-seeking whore, constantly reminding everyone of his own existence, that you kind of lose track of the time.

Like all press releases, White’s team says the usual boilerplate bullshit like “this is groundbreaking”/“this is best stuff ever,” even though it’s probably not. Stuff like… “Boarding House Reach sees Jack White expanding his musical palate with perhaps his most ambitious work thus far, a collection of songs that are simultaneously timeless and modern.” This is more cleverly worded than a bad time-share presentation. Translation = we’ll tell you anything and you’ll believe us, ’cause you’re an asshole.

They go on with more dribble… “Written and conceived while holed up in a spartan apartment with literally no outside world distractions, White exclusively used the same kind of gear he had when he was 15 years old (a quarter-inch four-track tape recorder, a simple mixer, and the most basic of instrumentation)… The album explores a remarkable range of sonic terrain – crunching rock ‘n’ roll, electro and hard funk, proto punk, hip-hop, gospel blues, and even country – all remapped and born anew to fit White’s matchless vision and sense of restless experimentation.” So, it’s basically going to suck, then? When you mix three genres together, it’s usually pretty bad. This is eight genres all smashed together. Delightful. I really hate this idea that in order to be “creative” one has to mix a bunch of genres all at once, ’cause that’s about the least creative thing ever. Adding mayo, mustard, and sardines to your peanut butter and jelly sandwich may not taste very good, so why should that logic work in music or anything else for that matter? It doesn’t. It never does.

Boarding House Reach (dumb title, BTW) was produced by Jack White and recorded at Third Man Studio in Nashville, Sear Sound in New York City and Capitol Studios in Los Angeles; the album was mixed by Bill Skibbe, Joshua V. Smith, and White at Third Man Studio in Nashville, defeating the entire purpose of White exclusively writing the album on the same kind of gear he had when was 15 years old – it didn’t matter.