The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

White Denim – Pretty Green

How does the Jukebox fare in Crystal’s challenge?


[Video]
[5.29]

Crystal Leww: Gosh, these guys sound exactly like (insert choice guitar band here)! I’m serious. Try to describe this band without mentioning another band.
[2]

Alfred Soto: Now, see, this has got riffs, notably the fluid ones in the last minute. They can hold a rhythm too. The lead singer sounds like Chris Martin imitating Stevie Ray Vaughn though.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: As White Denim have gone along in their career, they’ve moved away from a shambling outfit unafraid of chasing down whatever nutty idea they had (go listen to Fits, that’s all I ask) to becoming what can affectionately be described as an alternative to The Black Keys come festival time. “Pretty Green” sums this shift up well – it is a Shiner-stained chug built for late afternoons, but with enough weird twists (shifts in tempos mainly) to make it more than another boring revival. Far from their most interesting work, but shows these guys are good at exactly they want to do nowadays.
[6]

Anthony Easton: This sounds like it could have come from most American garages from anytime between the early 1970s and the mid 2000s. Its liquidity and refusal of time or place ironically suggest a very now sound. That it was produced by Tweedy and it comes from Austin does not surprise me at all — Austin is good at being one of those nowhere places that is everywhere, and Tweedy does the rock and roll kind of well. I like my garage rock less ambitious and more grinding, and when it falls into abstraction, I get bored, but good job before that. 
[7]

Iain Mew: Disappointingly, Liam Gallagher’s clothing label Pretty Green does not offer anything in white denim. You’ll have to make do with white cotton jeans. Their £85 price tag and most superficial of psychedelic embellishment of a dull formula are a decent approximation of the level of appeal of White Denim’s “Pretty Green”, though.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Faulting this for its lack of streamlining kinda goes counter to the White Denim ethos, which has curtailed the pyrotechnical diversions, but not so far we’d think they were Kings of Leon or something. They seem to still have a fundamental distrust of the hit-making game, too: they ground the chorus after a four-word takeoff. The bridge is where the fun is, where you can lean into the vague. Elsewhere, the vague is a tour guide (although good work, James Petrelli, on making “green” and “think” rhyme) to a world in which Captain Beyond was the world’s biggest rock band. But since that’s a place I like to visit, I’m on board.
[7]

Will Adams: The psychedelic touches — namely the twisting guitar lines that worm their way in after the first chorus — add depth to the otherwise static arrangement (the instrumental outro seems more like an afterthought). Simple, competent rock that you can crack open a beer to. 
[5]

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