When this profile of Jack White appeared last spring CLA pronounced, "Oh my god, Jack White is Willie Wonka." We've been thinking for a while about whether there are contemporary musicians who have had the kind of cultural significance that the artists we grew up with had, and I am becoming increasingly convinced that White may be one.
Consider "Seven Nation Army", for example. Is it the greatest sports stadium anthem of all time? A low bar in some ways: it's competition is "We Will Rock You" and "Rock and Roll (Part II)", but "Seven Nation Army" utterly transcends those. Or think about the guitar god documentary, "It Might Get Loud", which featured Jimmy Paige, and The Edge along with White. U2 mostly just make me tired, but White was every bit as cool as Paige, and that's no small feat. Or, and this is the point I've been building to, consider that
White's record label is about to start issuing something like 25,000 rare blues tracks, just because it's important music, with no expectation of profit. Who does that? How is it possible to be as cool as Jimmy Paige and the Smithsonian Institutes and still have time to be writing great rock and roll?
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