“Steady, as She Goes” – The Raconteurs
(Words/music: Brendan Benson and Jack White, available on Broken Boy Soldiers, Third Man / V2 Records 2006)

I love watching sports, but I’ve realized that it’s an area where trivia trumps understanding.  Sure, there are plenty of excellent minds who analyze and discuss sports both on TV and in print, but far too many spew lists of unrelated facts.  For example, while watching football highlights, a former NFL player recapping the game diverted from the action on screen to tell us where the running back went to college.  Rather than analyzing the play (which is why these networks hire former players and coaches, not necessarily because they are gifted journalists) or just reading the copy and staying out of the way, he felt compelled to throw out a fact a way of showing off.  Sometimes a player’s alma mater matters (when talking about former teammates, the system he played in, a former coach, etc.), but most of the time it’s inconsequential.  Rather than furthering discussion by talking about what makes a player exceptional or a team perform poorly, we’re pumped full of facts available within the first couple paragraphs of a Wikipedia search.  Simply put, it’s a convenient way to sound knowledgeable without saying anything thoughtful.

This happens with music as well.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of listing band member’s former bands or listing every single detail of a band’s biography.  I know this because I find myself falling into this trap more often than I care to admit.  It seems like some bands elicit this type of fact burp more than others; The Raconteurs, for instance, often get described not by what they sound like but by the members’ other musical projects.  Maybe that’s good enough for some people, but knowing where a band comes from doesn’t mean I’ll like a record.  In the grand scheme of things, I don’t like “Steady, as She Goes” because the guy from the White Stripes sings on it.  I like it because it’s a departure from Jack White’s usual straight-ahead blues assault.  There’s depth to the arrangement, both in instrumentation and in song structure.  There’s also subtlety beneath the volume, whether Brendan Benson’s backing vocals (hey, have I mentioned that he’s a solo artist?) or the guitar squeal buried in the mix right before the second chorus.  It also keeps the same things I like about his White Stripes songs, such as the punchy guitar sound and the snowballing tension that builds up to the chorus.  Sure, the band members’ pedigree acts as an advertisement to bring in listeners, but ultimately, people won’t stay exclusively because of their alma mater or hometown.  Eventually, these songs have to say something.

More on The Raconteurs: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm