Down On High: Examining the Records That Made Us
Down On High: Examining the Records That Made Us
Jack White - Frozen Charlotte (2026)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Two years after Jack White's shadow drop of No Name, we are reviewing the latest outing, Frozen Charlotte.
Um you are listening to Demon and High, where two millennial musicians talk about the cultural products that shape them. Today, we are talking about Jack Wade's 2026 album frozen shortly. Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Jack White is an American musician and producer, best known for his work with the White Stripes. That duo, consisting of White and drummer Meg White, achieved significant success with notable tracks like Seven Nation Army. Their album, Elephant, from 2003, won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. White's career also includes successful side projects with groups like The Rack and Tours and The Dead Weather, and his solo career. He co-founded Third Man Records, recorded the Bond theme song Another Way to Die, and won some 12 Grammy Awards overall. White has sold something like 12 million albums worldwide. Across a 25-year career, Jack White has repeatedly built his art around Bionaries. Time and again, he's imposed constraints on himself, boxing himself in creatively, declaring a vow of artistic chastity, swearing off the bass guitar, embracing analog recording, or confining himself to the limitations of a single band. Then just as deliberately, he's swung to the opposite pole, embracing maximalism, reveling in the endless possibilities of multi-track recording, expanding his musical vocabulary to include rap and funk, and surrounding himself with an ever growing cast of collaborators and side musicians. Again and again, he's returned to familiar oppositions folk tradition versus futurism, solo autour ship versus band chemistry, tradition versus innovation, improvisation versus precision, and the primitive versus the sophisticated and the raw versus the virtuosic. Rather than resolving these contradictions, he's made them the engine of his work. What raises an interesting question for Frozen Charlotte is whether after spending decades collapsing musical binaries, Jack was ready to tackle a new kind of binary, a human one. Frozen Charlotte, White's seventh uh solo album, explores the tension between domesticity and the cosmic. Throughout the record, the largest possible questions are placed inside the smallest possible spaces. Genesis unfolds in Detroit. Existential loneliness is expressed through kitchens and neighbors. God, fate, surveillance, relationships, ordinary household life, they all continually occupy the same emotional landscape. Rather than treating mythology and domestic life as separate worlds, White suggests they are happening simultaneously. This isn't entirely new territory for White. He has been fascinated with the trappings of American vernacular culture since the beginning. In particular, early Delta and Chicago blues, Appalachian folk, early twentieth century country and Western music. Much of his songwriting has filtered the present through the language of the past, whether it be gentlemen and chivalry, jealousy and revivalism, Dust Bowl iconography, mid-century honor culture, folklore, craftsmanship, and the rituals rituals of small town life. On Frozen Charlotte, that fascination is redirected towards something that has long existed at the edges of his work, the existential, the futuristic, and the digital. Rather than abandoning the domestic world, White uses it as a stage upon which larger questions of creation, identity, connection, truth, and fate are played out. The result is an album where these mundane, ordinary things sit very closely with the cosmic and the existential. The question becomes: can White convince us that Genesis belongs in Detroit, that fate belongs in a 1950s kitchen, and that heaven begins in the backyard? Or does the album ultimate ultimately fail to cohere those two elements? Now, Greg, uh we have covered essentially every album that Jack White has recorded. And we are returning to Jack White for his newest album. I have spent I've had maybe two or three listens to the album. I know you have too. Tell me about the things that stand out to you about Frozen Charlotte.
SPEAKER_04It reminds me a lot of the what I assume the process for no name was, which I mean Jack White has a he has this thing where he invites musicians into the studio without a plan, and they and they say, like, we just gotta finish something in three weeks because I I don't want to waste your time. And so he writes as he goes and they experiment with things. I mean, I think that was really cute and worked in the past really well. Certainly, as you know, a a way to challenge oneself. I'm I'm a little bit worried here that that the imposed limitation has sort of confused Jack. Something I said to you, which opened up the possibility of hitting the podcast mic again, was in summation, Seven Nation Army isn't a great song because it was written in a few minutes backstage. It's a great song that happened to be written in a few minutes backstage. Certainly it could have been overcooked, overwrought. And I'm glad that it wasn't. I just don't know that working backwards from X in that same way is is gonna be get that same interesting result. And what I what I also see here is there seems to be, I would guess, an adherence to a band structure. Certainly what it feels like. I haven't looked at the liner notes, but I remember when Jack White first went solo, he had two different bands, a feminine band and a masculine band, or women and men. And it was sort of seen as masturbatory and a little bit silly. People are like, really, how different are they? Why can't you just take your favorite member of each band? Like, why are you deciding the night of on the stage? You know, and I'm and you he likes to be rebellious, so I'm sure he pushed against that at the time, you know.
SPEAKER_03You know, nobody told Jack White that he wasn't allowed to have a bassist and that he had to have red, white, and you know, black as the colors. He decided those things and then he rebelled against his own self-imposed rules. But he's done that over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but but if if he's imposing self uh self-imposing rules again, I I'm just I'm a little bit a little bit disappointed because the last two well you know, and what I want to say is just to follow a narrative, after after those first two records, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto, all these articles came out that jokingly said like Jack left left the little room. He's like he's got he's got too many toys to play with. It's too much.
SPEAKER_03And this has been a press line, I think, probably in just about every record he's made since he left, you know, since the white stripes ended is oh, he's really going against the garage rock thing now in some some way.
SPEAKER_04Well, and they said that for like Icky Thump and Get Behind Me, Get Behind Me Satan. Now, I mean Get Behind Me Satan's not everyone's cup of tea, but Icky Thump is well regarded. So like it's hard to know what's signal and noise there. But after that, the next two records, well, th three really, and I I think there was Boarding House Reach, which I think might be tied neck and neck for my favorite. The next one, Fear of the Dawn. And Fear of the Dawn had a companion record called Getting Into Heaven, which was terrible, but Fear of the Dawn, Fear of the Dawn is amazing. Yeah, Fear of the Dawn is amazing. I wouldn't say that getting into heaven is terrible, I think it could have been an EP. Or just not not existed at all, you know? No, no, no. I I don't think that's fair. I mean, given that that when we saw them live, uh, you know, like Jack at the time it was like mid-40s, now he's like creep he's in the low 50s. Like, at least for the cohesion of the live show, those getting into heaven songs they think they served a purpose.
SPEAKER_03They did. Yes. Because otherwise it would be too frantic and bludgeoning. You're you're absolutely right. And I think we both agree that Fear of the Dawn and what was the other one you mentioned? Boarding House Reach. Boarding House Reach, especially Boarding House Reach. Those are the two standouts of his solo career where he's uncovered a new language, I would say.
SPEAKER_04But weirdly enough, I mean, not to say that there's like hate for those records. I when I go into communities online, it seems like they're there's sort of like they're like, oh, that was cute, but like, come on. Because then when no name came out, it was lauded for like return. Yeah, in my opinion, kind of the wrong reasons. Like it might be the right product, but the wrong reasons, like they're like, oh, it's it's so slapdash that there's no name for the record, and and it shadow dropped, and he's doing a show at first av that nobody can get into.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Which I'm which I was when he could fill a 5,000 cap room, he's choosing to play a 500 cap room and make it intentionally difficult for people to see him on the road. Which is neither here there nor there. I would never expect that things wouldn't change or that they would stay consistent.
SPEAKER_04So so when it comes to Frozen Charlotte, I I'm a little bit I I get the sense that that this make nothing precious attitude deserves a little bit of counterbalance. And and I think that there are some incidentally great songs on this record. But I but I feel like this record was built for a live tour and wasn't built as a cohesive product. Like there's no ballad. Like that's crazy. Right? I mean, like the uh everything is just balls to the wall four piece through the whole record.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, there are tempo changes and rhythm changes, but you're right, there is no real letting up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's um it it feels like a little bit like you know, like most people's midlife crisis would be to, you know, buy a brand new Corvette. I think his like his if there's any insecurity here, it's sort of like I'm gonna restore this old like T-bird. And and because it's not you know brand new and and I did it myself in my gr in my garage, it's not it's actually not midlife crisis, it's actually pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03This strikes you as a midlife crisis record. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_04Well, especially with the timing, and and I you know, of all your bloviating, you never talked about his divorce. I mean, this record came out right as as his wife said, um, actually, you're vaguely mean to me, and I want alimony.
SPEAKER_03Well, uh, has Waif how many times has White been married? Twice now?
SPEAKER_04This is now this is a third. Okay. It was Meg and Karen Ellie.
SPEAKER_03I did I don't count Meg because that's his sister. You understand?
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, sure, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you know, I I mean, certainly he's no he's not, you know, as much as he liked to pretend he's immune to these things, like certainly his personal life is probably visible and and certainly visible and probably relevant to the creative process. It's not like, you know, like there was such weirdness in the white stripes of having a a band with your ex-wife that you call your sister, that you almost couldn't even distract yourself with that element, like because you had a because you were playing a bit and you have to commit to the bit. You're not allowed to to to be like, oh, I was writing this song when Meg and I were having an argument, and it was because like when we were married, like I always left the toilet seat up, and when we divorced, I still leave the toilet seat up. Like it's like you're not allowed to do that because that's outside of the mythology. But now it's like you you can't have mythology because the first thing I that happens when you Google Jack White is like, here's divorce number three. It's like, well, I don't know. It's like the the it's pierced the veil now, and now it's hard not to think about him as this sort of like dad rocker who's on his third divorce.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I don't I mean, maybe that's unfair, but I I mean, I I you know the one thing I had to be careful of when I was listening to the record and trying to think about it was saying like that this was some of these elements were new for him. Because I think one of the things that distinguishes his solo albums from his side project and his white stripes work is that they are grump pretty grumpy affairs. Like generally speaking, he is sort of there's a fierce moralizing that can creep in around the edges on some of on some of the solo work. And I don't I don't necessarily see this one as any different, and I don't necessarily see that as a weakness of the material. It it's just that the rather than the counterbalance being lightness and ease and a deaf touch, oftentimes the contrast to the grumpiness is exhilarating air guitar level guitar work and sort of we can get into the to the details of the songs in a moment here, but but I guess I I think what I'm realizing as I'm processing out loud is like I miss mythos.
SPEAKER_04I think mythos, I think the intention that goes into mythos is what keeps Jack interesting. And what I would say the mythos has been in his solo career is first he starts out with Blunderbust, and it's about like, yes, I may be from Detroit, but my soul's from the south. Okay. And then he gets to Lazaretto, and then he creates this whole thing about like in a sane asylum, and and and he trademarks the blue that he's putting on his records now. And then Boarding House Boarding House Reach is like a like takes collections of lost poetry and put and experiments, and then Fear of the Dawn, every song had some sort of I'm afraid of being awake when the sun comes up, which which could be silly, but I actually really think it helped. The no-name mythology was what if there is no mythology, which I think is a mythology in and of itself. But here we are with Frozen Charlotte, and maybe it's just because I haven't followed this record because I kind of fell off with no name, because I was a little bit grumpy myself that I couldn't see him on that tour. But but I'm not really sure what the mythology here is. Like I don't I don't know what the thing is that he feels a commitment to. It certainly isn't his wife, and I'm not sure it's this record.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think maybe maybe a good place to start would be one of the tracks that that sort of, at least in my mind, does this trick of of working out pretty cosmic themes through pretty everyday metaphors. And I think maybe one of the better versions of that that executes both conceptually and musically is all alone again. The sort of, you know, the the southern fried twangy 12-bar blues style lick and the quasi-divorce lyrics, which happen to be pretty great. So he's contrasting this kind of existential loneliness and this sort of universal human condition pronouncements, and and he's referencing, you know, kind of a birth. But he's he's sort of folding these things in as he's as he's sort of working through like family and uh and d domestic love. I feel like a magician, but the trick's always on me. To find a needle in a haystack, well, it's plenty easy. You just burn the haystack. Pretty great lyric. It's got heavy guitars. I I think this is probably one where he finds a way to wed some of this some of this mythology that he's sort of conjuring into what would otherwise be sort of patented, you know, s so so sort of like it's sort it feels like inevitable. Most of his best guitar work feels kind of inevitable in the sense that it's like, how could I have not thought of that riff? How how does how is it so easy for him and so hard for the rest of us to to sort of pull out of thin air these memorable guitar licks? He never suffers for a good a hook or a riff on essentially any of his records.
SPEAKER_00Um, alone again.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's one that stood out to me as as not necessarily the most standout song, but certainly the standout marrying of the mythos and and the music. Is this one that you rated at all on the record?
SPEAKER_04I I think what I found distracting about this one, among many of these, is its is its adherence to conventional blues. Uh you know, to confess a confession that I've already made, I as a 16-year-old, I wanted to be Jack White. And I dedicated myself to learning how to play guitar really well. I think I was jamming these riffs as a 16-year-old, and I don't it it's like but there but as a 16-year-old guitar player, and even I don't know, probably at 35 too, like I didn't have jack white magic. This doesn't feel like jack white magic in the on the guitar. This feels like like blues hammer noodling to me. Like like it's just it's just uh like this is like the these are interstitials like on a on a on an eight bar blues. I'm not I'm surprised that that like this is what I this is a good example of a song where I'm talking about where it's like okay, the the tone is dialed in, eight bar blues writes itself like from a from a structural standpoint. If you know you can just noodle all that stuff, and then if you come up with like a r some some clever lyrics and and good themes, then does that does that sort of excuse what feels like a low effort instrumental? I mean, not for me.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well, maybe the next one that I would rate, I think recall some of the best work from No Name, which would be You'll Never Fix Me. This is sort of a patented garage rocker power chord song. Very familiar, very deft use of negative space in the riff. There's a winding lead that jets into and darts in and out of the various spaces between the rhythm guitars and the vocal. It's cocky, it's not a complicated lyric, although it it does live in the domestic realm like some of the others, with its references to bed sheets and things like that. I mean, the essential it's sort of a cocky rock song about you know take a shot and you'll miss, take a shot and you'll miss me. Turn off the lights, I've heard enough. Turn off the switch, I've heard enough, turn off the lights, I've seen enough. It's a this this would seem to recall many of the the opening singles of Jack White Civil Records, like sixteen Sultines or or um that's how I'm feeling.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I I definitely think this is getting closer, just because at least it it I mean, I still think it overcomplicates sonically at at times, but but I can appreciate that that there's just sort of like G F G F thing going, you know, just like I I mean that's what I remember about Jack White. It's like how many how many songs can you get out of you know, like a two chords that are right next to each other.
SPEAKER_03And I would say that this is astonishing that he finds new riffs where the rest of us would think, well, I can't play that again. That does surprise me over and over again.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I he he gets closer here, but but I think because you know the other the other thing too is like like compare this to like something way back, like literally the first self-titled White Stripes Records. Like he would not riff in between every empty space, and now he's kind of doing that, and that was like a and this and and I can recognize it because that was a bad habit that I had as a teenager. It would be like I'm like, look at how awesome I am, and you know, there couldn't be an empty space, but I thought it was pretty discerning of Jack back in the day. Maybe it was some other constraints too, but like to just say, like, I'm gonna play a chord and the chord can hang there. It doesn't have to, it doesn't have to have an interstitial little riff, it doesn't have to have you know bombastic drums, like it like and and w what I'm thinking about now too is another insecure thing that I felt like he was saying the last interview I or I listened to him say, which is like he was like, Oh, I love to play keys and I love drumming, but like people only really seem to want to me want me to play guitar, so like I guess that's what I do now. And so you know even this song, I'm like, are you do you feel this like obligation to be like, I'm Jack, the guitar guy, I guess gotta play guitar. God forbid I you know not deliver on on my duties. And that's what that what I wonder about some of this stuff when it's just so noisy.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, he also refuses to do that, like every record, he combines a combination of keyboards and organs and guitars, and you're never really sure in any one given instance what sort of layering is happening there. He's been doing that for a long time. Probably since Icky Thump.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, and I'm I'm not being I'm not saying he like literally refuses to do put other instruments in. I I guess what I'm saying is like you know, like it's almost like like when you know someone who's like a really good like person to hang with at a party, and you're like, man, you've always got some interesting story you tell. And then there's a moment of silence, and they're like, uh here's my other story. And you're like, okay, cool. Like, like you don't need to do that. Like, I was just telling you, like, you're a good storyteller. So anyway, you know, like what I think it could look like for this record is I mean, I'm gonna the the first thing that comes to mind. I mean, granted, this is a while back, was you don't you don't know me from the Racontoire's second record, I think. You liked that song and you thought it was a a Brennan or what's his name? Oh, Brendan Benson, yeah. Brendan Benson, yeah. You thought it was one of his songs. I'm like, no, that's just Jack White. He wanted to get behind a piano and play a piano ballad. It could look like that, or it could look like just letting letting space be around. And and so so with that, I I do want to like lend to there are songs on this record that feel less insecure, and I and I I think it's really the especially the first two. Totally God and the broken ribs is the opening track, and this I think is a strong track for it. Kind of reminds me of the Archibald one from No Name, where it's just like really psychotic preacher voice, yes.
SPEAKER_03I I I heard this as uh sort of similar to some of the no name stuff too. Some of these opening trio uh of tracks on here definitely harken back to some of the the religious fervor and the revival preacher uh or you know televangelist kind of ranting, the charismatic Christianity thing. I would agree with you that that that that is a voice that I like hearing from him. Uh it's a character that is relatively new in the cast of Jack White characters, I would say. And I I appreciate it. It it it strikes me as compelling in the same way something like Rag and Bone was.
SPEAKER_04Yes, exactly. That's actually what I was thinking of too.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the end of the world. Nobody left but one boy and one girl and one other.
SPEAKER_00But you know we can't live like a sister and a brother. They're gonna make you a mother now. The first of the brothers called the road.
SPEAKER_04And and uh even, you know, when there is some noodling, it feels like it's to build up tension because the drums drop out, and then you he, you know, he just he does that thing where it sounds like it's gonna fall apart and yet everyone's still on track with him. And there's even some experimentation sonically, like there's this really I I don't know if it's like a ring-modulated keyboard or like a guitar solo or whatever, but like it's just got some weird breakdown stuff that I found really, really refreshing. Like it's it's a bizarre song and comfortable in its space.
SPEAKER_03I think we would both agree that Derrico Demonico, uh the second track on the record, it is a pretty straightforward example of a standard kind of 12-bar style blues lick that repeats. But so maybe maybe I would ask you this is is the question like it's boring to hear Jack White play electric blues, or is it just like it has to be a pretty good one to be with one?
SPEAKER_04Which is about as conventional as it gets structurally. But but Derrico Dim Domenico, Demonico. It it feels like powerful and confident and not frantic.
SPEAKER_03No, it feels easy, which is so upsetting that he continues to do this trick of just sort of effortlessly writing a killer rock riff and it it not looking hard. I think he's just an expert at writing Jack White riffs. Like I as I was listening to this record, I was sort of like if Jack White, over the course of any six-month period, just handed Aerosmith all of his guitar ideas. Right? Just if if every stray noodle that he did on tour was handed to Joe Perry and Aerosmith, it would be a return to form. It would be Aerosmith is back. Because it's so hard. I mean, there are literally people who are on the road now that have written exactly one or maybe two real, you know, indelible rock riffs. And they make their entire bones on that the on that premise. And Jack seemingly has three or four of them on every album that he works on where he's playing guitar. And it's not immediately clear how he continues to do things like Derrico DeMonico, and yet he does. I will come to you on the back of a twister storm, I've got a brand new truck, and there's this uh twister as mythical arrival. He's you know, sort of using all these kind of rural signifiers in there. But it it's it is uh on one level just an excuse to hear him play great guitar, and there's a pretty killer digitech whammy pedal solo in there where he's doing some things with that effect that he's played so often over the years that I've never heard him do. And it's and it's pretty impressive. And I, you know, I personally, you didn't include it, but I think the third track on the record is uh is pretty well in keeping with with the first two. There's nobody there. That's one that stands out to me because it has this killer kind of like chromatic Lud Zeppelin style riff. It's almost like Back in Black or Walk This Way. It's just got a very like familiar classic rock chromatic movement in it. Or even like Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith, that sort of ascending chromatic movement. That that's one where he's sort of again referring to things like roses, the radio, the kitchen, but then he's pairing it with things like holy water and prayer and this kind of existential isolation. So, you know, in a kitchen cemetery of poses, holy water dripping over roses, it stood up to me as I was starting to kneel, and there was nobody there. So he's referring to this kind of quasi-conversion myth, which goes hand in hand with the kind of Detroit as uh the Garden of Eden stuff from the opener.
SPEAKER_04I think it worked pretty well because it has a lot of the same good things uh about it that the first two tracks had. But but I just found it a little bit a strange sequencing, maybe. Maybe that was like a little bit troublesome to have three constant steady songs that feel so it's like now there's the third start and stop.
SPEAKER_03And and then like too much chocolate ice cream is too much chocolate ice cream. Is that what you're telling me?
SPEAKER_04Sort of, uh I I guess like like maybe maybe what I'm saying is like I think these three songs might might have been uh you know good good sequence differently, like as one, four, and eight or something. Because because of the common DNA. Because it this does feel like a a relatively top-loaded record. Be b especially in those first three, which I I guess Jack is not he does all the time. He opens with you know with the with the tracks that he actually this is also, now that I think about it, one of the few maybe maybe it's his first or second. I don't know. Most most of his records since solo have had title tracks. I don't know if Entering Heaven Alive does, but and No Name certainly doesn't, but Frozen Charlotte not really sure. Oh well Boarding House Reach. Okay, that's a a dead theory. But the point is, I'm not the I I'm having a trouble figuring out like what the center point for the record is supposed to be for him, like where the the cohesion, the thesis statement is, which is much easier on you know, most obviously Fear of the Dawn.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, uh which had its own sort of conceptual hook.
SPEAKER_04Right. And so like even when I when I started reading your notes going into this, uh, you know, it's hard to make sense, but that but I also wondered to what degree you were giving a lot of charitable scaffolding to something that was more incidental.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's a that's a pretty damning critique. I I think it's there in the songs, and I would say probably the the final song great song on the record that I would talk about, I know we both agree on, is probably one of the best examples of the way that he's pairing these sort of cosmic themes with with more mundane concerns. And I also think this kind of conceptual work is is in his work all the time.
SPEAKER_04So to suggest that it's here is doesn't strike me as surprising or uh I guess I guess to meet you halfway, then is it sort of like when Stephen King says like names his character Jack Daniels, and then you ask him, like, is this about your drinking problem? And he says, What are you talking about? Like I mean, uh who knows? Okay. Come on now. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, the not, you know, drum no drum roll necessary, neighbors blues, which closes out the record. It's a minor key blues, a sort of minor key cousin of elephants ball and a biscuit. I would that's how it it struck me. And it's a a sort of catalog of the breakdown of mere decency and the quiet menace of being policed and judged and watched, you know, in a kind of small town environment. So he's contrasting these symbolic roosters and roosters, you know, overseeing his grave and judgment uh of the biblical sense with backyards and hedges and neighbors. Got so many problems that my neighbors think they can fix, and I ain't got no problems. That my neighbor Yeah, my hedges are too high, aren't they? They're gonna keep an eye on me so they can get their licks. I'm gonna get some of my own neighbors that neighbors never have anything good to say. Don't want to see them, not in my backyard. So he's sort of playing with these sort of funny ideas about NIMBYism and perhaps uh echo chambers in digital spaces, which he touches on in other places in the record, and doing it over, you know, probably one of the easiest things for him to deliver memorably, which is kind of classic blues setup.
SPEAKER_01Got so many problems.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I think so too. And I also, you know, to to whatever degree, you know, we can quibble about the intentionality of uh of some of these narratives. Because I I mean it strikes me, uh as far as I know, Jack doesn't write his lyrics down. I think he I think he does like He add ad hoc griffs that's like stream of consciousness, and then he finds and he calls from there to see what what themes make sense. I mean it's certainly obvious on on songs like Lazaretto, where it's like you you have these literary references, then all of a sudden it's just like I'm making people I know out of pieces of coffee and cotton. It's like kind of you know, but anyway, the yeah in in here everything is so coherent and explicit and clear. It's it's actually pretty refreshing that like I mean, yes, it is it is metaphor and and an analogy and stuff, but like I mean, I I I it it it feels more confident because of how bald it is to me. And I think it's earned con in earned confidence. And it's certainly like you don't even necessarily have to think of it in modern I mean, I'm sure there's some modern implications too, but like just just broadly, even the idea of like people always having something to say about what you're doing, and like you want your hedges high for your privacy, but then people tell you you can't have them that high because the HOA, you know, it's like yeah, it's you know, it sort of reminds me of like in my personal life, like dealing with boundaries, like when you don't have any boundaries, and then you start asking people in your life to respect boundaries that you're trying to to adhere to, then they act all like like, wait, wait a minute, like you've never asked for this before, so why should I respect it now? It's like for exactly that reason, actually.
SPEAKER_03It's just sort of timeless sentiment. Much of the things in the song are pretty timeless sentiment. He probably could have written that song 20 years ago. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean that's an obvious standout. And I do think of the songs we've talked about here, I would be very comfortable putting two, two or more of them in a mix with his best work. And then there are there's sort of a maybe some more complicated appraisals to come.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's interesting you say that because I have one more song that I I put in in a good bucket, and I'm and which one I like dollar bill. I thought it was pretty fun and straightforward, and it kind of has the catch-hell blues thing going on. Which uh the slide, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I tended to think the slide riff wasn't quite as exciting, but I I think that's probably a your your myo which may vary situation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, fair, fair enough, but uh, but I think like you know, when you're working on the the confines of a metal bar across your pinky, you know, you you probably There's only so many combinations.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's never had that problem anywhere else on the neck, so well, yeah, with more fingers to use.
SPEAKER_04But but I I I suspect I suspect this one will be a live standout. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03What why one species dies and another keeps going, from Neanderthals to Denizovians, are the Homo sapiens the future aliens. I mean, this sort of weed thoughts song. It it doesn't it doesn't really strike me as memorable. I do not particularly think uh the the musical ideas are all that compelling, as as much as it could be the centerpiece conceptually. And then I would say things like I can't believe what I'm hearing. Again, I just think the sort of quasi judgment themes. Are obviously legible. I just I think it doesn't cohere into something crystalline. And then I guess things like She's in a Frenzy or things like Thick as Thieves or things like Making Contact. I don't think those those are necessarily uh underwhelming. I just think they're minor efforts.
SPEAKER_04They were what these are the songs I'm talking about when I when I suggest he might have been phoning it in under the idea that like if you bring the energy the songs arrive. Because she's she's in a frenzy. I this might be and this might be visceral, and I might change my mind about it. This I think this might be the first Jack White song I've ever hated. Oh, really? I I don't like I actually got really upset when I got here, and I was like, what the fuck is going on here? It is like this is like the perfect thing for like, you know, if you and I were jamming, like we might be like, hey, there's something there. Uh but we'd but we'd but we'd come back to it, and then you know, and if we put it out like this, and we're like, why isn't anyone blowing up our phones asking us to tour? Because you don't fucking deserve it. This sucks.
SPEAKER_03I I did not think it sucked. I did think it was a minor entry in on a record with too many minor entries. Yes. Well, Greg, on our show we do a segment called Standout Cop Out Dropout, where we select one track to send to a first-time listener to send up for the ages, and one track to delete from the record to remove from memory. Jack White's 2026 album, Frozen Charlotte. Greg, what do you want to send up and send down?
SPEAKER_04I I I want to give you space for for the obvious choice, and and I'm gonna say that like of the of the three beginning thesis statements, Derrick, Demonico, Demen, you know, I don't know, Demonico, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Demonico, sure.
SPEAKER_04I I I I think it like I think it does all the things that the other two need to do as well. And so I'd say, like, yeah, if if this was an album that felt as confident and comfortable as that, or you know, you know, if I take a cop out, I would say that God and and the broken ribs is isn't equal to that, just that sort of sort of preacher demonstration, that's a great place for him to be. And I and I I think there's a greater commitment to the bit there, and and I think that's good.
SPEAKER_03I'm very tempted to say the answer is you'll never fix me. And I do think that's a pretty immediate Jack White, you know, power chord song. But yes, when I finished listening through the second time, neighbor's blues was the obvious standout from the record. Conceptually, musically, while it does recall some of his past highlights, as is typical of him, he finds a new wrinkle that allows him to make everything new again on the fretboard. So yeah. Neighbor's blues stands out to me as a really strong entry uh standout on the record.
SPEAKER_04And I would obviously drop She's in a Frenzy. I I thought that was the lowest effort. And you know, there's nothing wrong with a tight 10 and there's 13 It's a 42-minute record. That's kind of long for for a Jack White record.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and personally, I I think if there is a moment when the conceptual conceit just fails to live up to the music, I would say nobody knows is a pretty disappointing attempt to combine the cosmic with the domestic. So you've been listening to Down on High. We'll be back in the future with more records, probably from the two thousands.
