Rock solid: the White Stripes, the Strokes, and the Hives.(rock music)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 22-APR-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Will pop -- Britney, J. Lo, 'N Sync, and the rest -- kill rock? Whenever rock music has been threatened in the past (by disco, by New Kids on the Block), it has rebounded (with punk, with grunge). Sometimes it has wobbled, sometimes it has teetered, but it has never completely fallen down. As Neil Young put it, "Hey, hey, my, my, rock and roll will never die."

But upon closer inspection Young's Theorem breaks down. True, the best-selling act of 2001 was the alternative-metal outfit Linkin Park, and similar groups like Creed, P.O.D., and Puddle of Mudd have also sold in the millions. But these bands aren't exactly playing rock and roll. Though the dictionary might not make the distinction, rock and roll is a subset of rock distinguished by an extra ingredient: an upjut of energy, a defiant attitude, a backbeat. Jerry Lee Lewis was rock and roll. Gene Pitney wasn't. The Pretenders were rock and roll. The Bee Gees weren't. Elvis Costello was rock and roll for a while, and then he wasn't. By this standard, the moody crooning of Creed and friends doesn't qualify; nor does the self-effacing arena rock of the Dave Matthews Band. But there does seem to be a new crop of bands that favor short, spiky songs galvanized by angst and anger. If these bands -- the White Stripes and the Strokes are the best known, and among the best -- aren't exactly new, they're a return to something older and more distinctive: to the spirit of punk and, before that, of the British Invasion.

The White Stripes, the pride of Detroit, consist of Jack White and Meg White. He's the principal songwriter, she drums; it's an arrangement that brings to mind the Carpenters, but this is a different kind of timbre altogether. On their first two albums, the White Stripes placed Jack's originals alongside covers...

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