White Stripes "aside from that and beside this: Thew White Stripes Greatest Hits"

 

(Third Man, 2020) I am not sure exactly what to say about this one. Amanda Petrusich at the New Yorker (who earned my loyalty with her great book on 78 collectors) responded to this LP with a treatise on Greatest Hits collections in general, and that's just about right, because this is a functional Greatest Hits. Because they were legit playing the shitty clubs and releasing 45s on the same labels as the other underground garage bands in their first years, and because they didn't change or compromise when they became Major Label sorta-superstars, it takes me a minute to remember they had actual real life hits, which all sound really good packaged together. Jack White's songwriting, and their good taste in cover songs, and the band's stripped down energy and good drumming, and the fact that they were the only group since to fifties to remember the value of a two-minute pop song, made their hits actual good songs they did not age poorly and are fun to listen to (individually or together). My broke ass has stupidly been unable to bring myself to quit the Third Man record club, which I cannot afford, but for my bad financial decision making this quarter I was rewarded with the deluxe edition which has a third LP of B-sides, a remix, and Loretta Lynn and Tegan and Sara covers, plus special artwork and a toy, and art prints. I don't necessarily like the design on this more than the photo-centric standard album artwork, but the production of this is bizarre and exquisite (there is printing on the inside of gatefold sleeves, and the one that holds two LPs is wider than the one that holds one, and the red striped white vinyl is  stupid beautiful) so I hope Congress is glad to know my stimulus check was well spent.