It's not just about color... The White Stripes were all about the "rule of three". In a documentary, Jack White said that 3 was the minimal amount of things that assembles something concrete. A table requires 3 legs, but would fall with only 2, and doesn't require 4. He followed this rule of minimalism with the idea that it would consistently challenge him, forcing him to work hard to stay creative and original. This is the very premise which birthed The White Stripes in the first place.
Three is also the smallest number for minorities and majorities to form. Also, I happy to be writing this response three years after you posted your comment :P
@@danielbuchanan1560 Jack always talks about limitations. They could have easily hired another person to make the music flow better in a live setting but they never did. Even though some songs have two guitars (I Fought Piranhas/Ball and Biscuit) or even a bass (Stop Breaking Down).
Man, this channel is great! I can tell it's gonna blow up soon. Everything is so professionally edited and incredibly well structured. Can't wait for more!!!
Yeah, I wanted to talk about the Raconteurs and Dead Weather, and his various color schemes with Third Man Records but I wanted to keep it relatively short haha
Don't worry about brevity my man. An additional 5 minutes that included the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather and Third Man Record wouldn't have turned away one single person who watched this video. You've got a new subscriber in me...your channel is going to blow up... ;D
Polyphonic but racontours are more a work of group not a virtuoso controlling the way that he sells their art, visually and musical ly, as Jack did on white stripes, for example.. You think this type of abordage exists on this band, too?
Even bigger than his commitment to color is his obsession with 3's. Would love to see a video on that! Jack is such an extremely nice individual. I had the pleasure of meeting him several times due to the fact the guy I dated at the time did the artistic carpentry work for Third Man Records.
valarya My teacher had a friend who met him at a bar in Detroit, his friend told him that Jack was very pretentious. But from interviews and stuff I could never see Jack not being anything but humble...
David Reece my boyfriend did all the custom woodworking in Third Man Records when it was being built in the late 2000's. We were there with the construction crew often and Jack would walk through and talk to every single person. He'd take time to learn their names, see if they were comfortable, etc... and he always remembered my daughters name even tho he only met her once (he'd ask after her each time I was there). Incredibly humble, kind and thoughtful. I wasn't really a fan before that... :)
I am a fan of Jack white and I didn't know Jack's use of colors(was just aware of colors with different bands). May be because I was more into his outstanding guitar riffs.
Yo dude i just discovered your channel and I'm impressed. I subbed after 1 minute of your Bonham video. I love how in depth you look into the music and how you think outside the box. I literally never noticed the importance of colour in Jack Whites discography and videos. Just for the future could you maybe talk about the impact of Linkin Park? Or their evolution as an artist? People may like that since the recent events. I'd love to hear what you have got to say and even find.
Love Jack White. Please cover his instrumentation and musicality. He is so muchmore than the colors. Thank you for even having him in your mix to begin with. He's truly my favorite. Everything he does. Have a great day!!!
I think De Stijl had a really great influence on the early TWS stuff and colorboard. De Stijl is a Dutch artistic movement, which only uses 4 colours: black, white red and yellow (okay The White Stripes don't use yellow but you've got the idea :D). The Stijl also uses only straight lines that intersect each other at 90 degrees. I think that this thing not only has a great influence on colours but also on the band's minimalistic sound. They even got an album entitled De Stijl (it is a great album after all, one of my favorites). Great video anyway! :)
As someone who has syinsthia and has been listening to Jack White my entire life, the music In my mind has rarely ever matched the set aesthetic. Bass tends to be very blue, normally Prussian or Navy so Seven Nation Army with the blue seemed to mesh with the music better, but that's just how my brain works.
Vi Holiday it's very intéressant, thanks for sharing. I dont think I have synesthesia but when I listen to a song from an album, I often see different variations of the album's cover main color
I'm a classic rock geezer and Jack White rocks. Saw him solo, with Meg and Raconteurs. Fave songs to play on guitar are Yorba and Army. Sometimes play Yorba electric and Army acoustic. Love Freedom at 21 but still learning that. Meg was cool drummer and hot, especially in that Icky Thump cover.
Good narrators are tough to find but a worthy investment for a unique and interesting perspective. The guy reading doesn't lend itself to the meticulous nature of subject matter.
His independent record label/shops (Third Man) also have a strong devotion to a color scheme, this time being yellow/black/white. He definitely has a love for primary colors.
Dude, this is so weird. Don't get me wrong, I loved your video. It is just strange because I wrote an essay when I was getting my degree in Mass Communication with the exact same argument. Great job, keep doin it!
I read in a magazine once that he also created the red, black and white scheme to weed out listeners who would probably instantly reject them for being "gimmicky". The idea being that if you're too hung up to see past it and take their music seriously, you probably wouldn't like it anyway.
The colours used in his record company, the Third Man Records fitted the same scheme. A combination of yellow and black fills everything in the building.
For a while I only wore red, head to toe; even red socks. Eventually I had to stop because people would regularly bring up Jack White, and think I was copying him. You know you're good at marketing when you basically own a primary color.
Lot of people don't realise what a massive influence Simply Red were on the White Stripes. Jack once said he had only two heroes: Son House and Mick Hucknall.
Absolutely 100% agree with your closing statement, jack white's influence on alt rock, roots rock, blues rock and garage rock alone are enough to warrant the title of icon. The first time i heard seven nation army changed my life, it was like seeing the beatles on ed sullivan show. my entire life officially began. Great video essay.
Artist and a bit of a nerd here- we humans tend to associate colors with what we see in our daily lives. If blood was blue, if snow was red, if our skin was green- we wouldn't feel the same with the colors. Minimalism also plays a part in cinematic focus (of course, duh me), but in the biological sense that we are 'lazy' in seeing things. Something that's dominantly colored with one or two colors are satisfying even though they're not complimentary because of this.
My God your videos are very High quality, like made by a media outlet. Hope you grow bigger. Unfortunately, RU-vid seems to favor quantity now over quality.
This is one of the first things that attracted me to Jack, both when he was with the Stripes and solo. This is also the same thing that unconsciously attracts people to entertainers like Marilyn Manson and film directors like Tarantino. You did a fantastic job of explaining the importance of visual imagery in music, great channel.
"Standout career?' .... that's a bit of a stretch. ... Jack White was always more about fashion and imagery than Music. .... that's why his SHIT MUSIC is already Out Of Style. .... This video about his Gestapo committment to strict visual images PROVES MY POINT. .... Jack White IS HISTORY and good fucking riddance..
Very interesting video. In an interview he once said how giving himself boundaries helped him to be more creative, because if he had limitless options he would become overwhelmed and never get anything done. It's also a big part of the reason the white stripes were a 2 piece.
Interesting concept put forward by Jack White, but he used the wrong type of colour scheme. He made the mistake of using primary colours, which have no depth or gradient - they're overly simplistic and don't a good job of conveying the layers and depth of the music they're attributed to. The reason that red, white and black work well for something like a Nazi flag, is because they're uncompromising. They're an immovable block which states 'this is the way things are and they are not subject to change'. The Nazis were all about making extreme statements that didn't permit nuanced discussion - music isn't like that..
I'm a big July Talk fan, they put a lot of thought into their aesthetic. The Black/White works so well with their style too and the interplay between the singers
I wouldn't really consider myself a fan, but they came to mind right away and I really respect what they are doing for modern music. I hope they go far
Adam savage just posted a video where he interviews jack white about his new record plant and he talks about how music is visual to him. Its more about the movement of records and cassettes vs "invisible" digital music than color, but interesting nonetheless.
Just another example of the genius that is Jack White. Tool comes to mind as another band who uses visuals and color schemes to really enhance their music too.
Quite possibly Jack would never have done all this if his last name was Smith or Jones or well, anything that's not a color. Jack White: BEGAN IN COLOR, DESTINY WAS MUSIC
The White Stripes - White, Black, Red Jack White - Blue The Raconteurs - Brown, Bronze Third Man Records - Yellow, Black But I don't think The Dead Weather have a color scheme
To me, the blue on Seven Nation Army gets lost alongside the white. Minimal red with lots of white works well (just look at the Japanese flag) but blue needs to be either the most prominent colour or coupled mostly with black in order to work best, I believe.
Really like the video! Though, wouldn't it be more accurate to say "For hm *(Music) Performance* is as much a form of visual expression, as it is an auditory expression."?
John and Tom Fogerty from Creedence Clearwater Revival grew up with 4 other brothers in their grandmother's house in El Cerrito California. Down the street a bit later lived a band called Metallica and just up the hill was another band called Green Day. Also Exodus, Ruffians, Piranha, Mordred, Pillage Sunday, and of course Spastic Children all lived in El Cerrito, or the little hill. You could find the nation's largest dog park, at over 40 acres, in EC. But you wouldn't find the little hill...it was in Albany tl;dr
My favorite color is red, then second is black then 3rd is white. Those colors have a "sound" to me i like. I mean all colors have a sound but those are my favorite.
At his place, Third Man Records here in Nashville, all the branding is yellow & black. Red & Blue are used here & there thematically, including his Blue Room for performances & events. Overall a wonderful use of the primary colors.
As a big jack white fan, I really didn't like it when he changed the colors of the video, I thought that whole color thing was kinda bullshit but I felt really uncomfortable seeing the blue seven nation army.
Tbh I didn't find these explanations all that convincing, except for these colours being elementary (in Jack's own words then) and their resulting visceral quality which I kind of agree with. On the other hand, and unfortunately too, I always found the blue tones boring and I don't know if I subconsciously associated with his solo music but I find most of the solo stuff boring as well. I miss the energy of the White Stripes. That being said I wonder if the red white and black don't refer to actual people and especially his home town of Detroit and the large black community which influenced his blues I think... The red would stand for Native Americans then and there is a substantial number of them in Detroit too. So maybe I'm reading too much into it, but maybe they're the elementary people of America, or the elementary actors of America's history...? And the relationship between the three is quite visceral too actually... I find it to be quite a satisfying metaphor tbh. Idk, what do you guys think?
Really nice explaination on how Jack White uses the power of color. Did you know there was a band in the 70's and 80's named Devo, that was also doing this. Examples: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g4-2onb62y8.html or ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-j_QLzthSkfM.html
THIS specifically was what made me fall in love with The White Stripes. I was very young when "White Blood Cells" came out, but to this day, its still my favorite album of all time. Why? Well certainty the music is a huge part of it, but moreover, the album art and liner notes hypnotized my young mind. The band felt like more then a band; they were a concept. They had an image. An image unlike what you get with say a David Bowie or Ramones; just as iconic, but like a uniform. If I wore Red, White, & Black it was as if i were representing my tribe. To this day when a band comes out just wearing street clothes, it seems to me like a piece of what makes music performance so special is missing. So thank you Jack and Meg, for making aesthetics important.
If you want to know where is all started for Jack, look into Son House, and Flat Duo Jets. The undertone to all is that things are done in 3’s. The colors, three aspects in the band, 3 cords. It’s a basic number for what the simplistic foundation music can be but not always the case. The stripes are drums, guitar, vocal. Then during the performances he would go back and forth from pianos, organs, diff mics, etc... the even more baffling thing that most bands wouldn’t dare do. No set list ever, everything what like improv comedy, on the spot. The idea is people paid for a show, a show they would get. And each would be unique to there own. Simple things sometimes breed the most amazing things.
This video is great. Exceptional editing. Bravo. You've earned a sub today my friend. BUt You all have to realize that literally everything that comes out of Jack White's mouth is grade A B.S. His name isn't even Jack White, and he spent years telling people his wife was his sister.
Two things:1) red white and black are the flag colors of Trinidad and Tobago,where I'm originally from and 2) I'm wearing a blue dress outfit while watching and learning this.
Thank you very much for the video and all the time and effort you put into it. I have known about jack white's colour obsession and it is super to see someone explain and highlight it so well.
Colour is so rarely used properly. I think ed sheeran is another example of this. His colour devotion isn’t intense, but each of his eras very much feels like the colour it is associated with, and during each era everything is that colour. During plus everything felt orange, soft, fuzzy, slightly calm. During multiply everything was green, slightly envious, resentful, distorted and yet clear, and very open, like a guitar chord, and then divide is blue, open, clear cut like the ringing of a bell and completely cool. The colour therapy not only gives an effective brand to the artist but also helps conjure up the feel of the album, especially when you make the audience associate that sound with that colour. Seeing ed sheeran in green light instantly makes me think it’ll be a darker song, seeing him in blue always makes me think it’ll be free and powerful, the opposite of stripped back. Sorry for using him as an example for those who don’t watch much of his stuff but I really think that much like jack he understands how colour influences people, and how colour can not only make people think of him, but also of certain periods of him
Dont forget that Third Man Label is also color coded Black and Yellow and The Raconteurs are Black and Green and The Dead Weather is strictly black and white.
Jack White clearly likes design but with corporate marketing the logo is an enticement to seduce people to buy. For music it is less important as musicians can get out there and play in front of people and hook fans in that way and the best medium unlike McD who would just get bottled off stage. I still think his work with The Raconteurs was his best work and no colour schemes.
