According to the Blunderbuss Songfacts, this was White's first #1 album in the US - he missed the top of the Billboard 200 with his other bands the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. White's previous highest chart placing had been the White Stripes' 2007 album Icky Thump, which peaked at #2. Read more on Last.fm.
Jack White (born John Anthony Gillis on 9 July 1975 in Detroit, MI, United States) is an American rock musician, producer and actor. He rose to prominence as the guitarist and lead vocalist of the rock duo The White Stripes (1997-2011) and, after that, as the guitarist and vocalist of The Raconteurs, and drummer and vocalist for the band The Dead Weather, two bands that are still active on and off. White is also a recording artist in his own right and under his own name. Read more on Last.fm
Does it deliver the expected memorable tune or five? Yes. Is it revolutionary in comparison to The White Stripes?. No. In fact, White seems to be playing it safe. The fact is, not a track on this record would be out of place on a Stripes album, albeit a weak one. It’s not the worst that could have happened, but its not the monumental statement we were waiting on. Still, compared to his peers, its a rollicking 3 star good time, with doses of brilliance sprinkled here and there.
Everything I’ve come to love about White is contained therein: mythology, macabre. fun, overboard eccentricity, and darn fine/interesting songwriting. It’s weird, and it lacks the gut-punch of his Stripesy raw blues fury, but ti’s clear that this moment is about being away from that headspace or any of the headspaces it subsequently created. I can’t say whether this album will stick with me the way early Stripes or Dead Weather stuff did, but that may just be personal preference. Here, White makes it evident to me that he may be preparing himself to fill the cult-legend shoes that our generation has long looked to Grandpa Tom Waits to fill until a suitor presented him or herself.
‘Blunderbuss’ is setting a dangerous precedent for Jack White by validating all the unrealistic expectations I had of this album. Nothing is surprising here, but every track is bursting at the seams with character—and in a now crowded genre of indie/blues, no doubt. Over the course of the record, he gets all the way out to a punk rock aesthetic—nearly sounding like the Blood Brothers—tracks apart from a song that sounds like it was written for young children. Jack White might be the only musician alive who can be so odd with so much swagger.