One thing more before I crash.(I'm tired and drunk) The reason White Stripes are getting flack is that they are laying claim both to the ethos of directness and simplicity of 'roots' music and to the ironic detachment of pop. What Pareles finds offensive is the ambiguity.
I was drinking in a bar tonight and heard Johnny Cash's studio recording of Folsom Prison. Two things came to mind:
He wrote the damn song while he was on an airplane. And for the last ten years he's been recording on Interscope, a label otherwise known for Metal and Rap. His producer at Interscope is Rick Rubin, cofounder with Russell Simmons -in a dorm room at NYU in the early 1980's- of Def Jam. So Johnny Cash, Anthrax, and Run DMC all have at least one thing in common.
You tell me where integrity ends and irony begins.