Track Listing

1. Steady, As She Goes
2. Hands
3. Broken Boy Soldier
4. Intimate Secretary
5. Together
6. Level
7. Store Bought Bones
8. Yellow Sun
9. Call It A Day
10. Blue Veins

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1458 in Music
• Released on: 2006-05-15
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Formed around the core of old friends Jack White of the White Stripes and fellow Detroit musician Brendan Benson, The Raconteurs’ debut album Broken Boy Soldiers sees White playing apart from his "sister"-muse Meg for the first time in almost a decade. Backed up by a rhythm section of Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of The Greenhornes, who Jack previously enlisted to play on Loretta Lynn’s 2004 album Van Lear Rose, this is a grit-under-the-fingernails rock offering, but with an ear for eclecticism that brings to mind classic rock touchstones from the Beatles’ Revolver to Led Zep’s Physical Graffiti. "Steady As She Goes" is a catchy, robust rock opener that bears resemblance to the Stripes’ choppy garage-rock minimalism, but before long, The Raconteurs are writing their own brief, White and Benson weaving Lennon-McCartney style vocal harmonies on the likes of "Hands" and "Together", or summoning up a clamourous sense of runaway-train doom on the White-sung "Broken Boy Soldier". It’s sturdy and enjoyable, in a familiar sort of way, but the eccentric "Intimate Secretary" ("This ringing in my ears won’t stop/I’ve got a red Japanese teapot") aside, it lacks the offbeat eccentricity and one-of-a-kind chemistry that makes the Stripes unique. --Louis Pattison

From the Label
The Raconteurs are a new band made up of old friends, consisting of Jack Lawrence (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), Brendan Benson (guitars, vocals, keys) and Jack White (guitars, vocals, keys). The seed was sewn in an attic in the middle of a hot summer when friends Jack White and Brendan Benson got together and wrote a song that truly inspired them. This song was "Steady, As She Goes" and the inspiration led to the creation of a full band with the addition of Lawrence and Keeler. While each of these four individuals have had successful careers with their own bands, the culmination of all of their talents is what truly makes The Raconteurs a force to be reckoned with.

The quartet convened at Benson's East Grand Studio to lay down the basic tracks for Broken Boy Soldiers. Work would continue whenever the boys could get together over the next year. The band is now, for its members, all consuming and they now present themselves to be consumed, or at best simply heard.

From the ready-made, radio-friendly quality built into songs like "Steady, As She Goes", to the explosive tenacity of "Store Bought Bones", all the way down to the "hits the cockles of your heart" lullabies that encompass the full length recording, The Raconteurs are more than capable of conquering any genre challenge or tale that they encounter. After all, a raconteur is, by definition, a deft storyteller. And now a new story is unfolding.

CD Description
Debut album from indie supergroup featuring Jack White of White Stripes fame and powerpop legend Brendan Benson, together with the rhythm section from garage rock stars the Greenhornes. Recording their album in downtime from their respective day jobs, the band has since grown into a full-time concern. Showcasing its members' considerable combined songwriting talents, the band's sound is a tuneful and memorable collision of raw blues, garage rock fury and sugary indie pop.

Customer Reviews

That rare thing - a decent side-project.
To most people, The Raconteurs - or as they are known in New Zealand due to an old jazz band, the Saboteurs - will to most people be a side-project rather than a supergroup. This is because most people have never heard of power-pop solo artist Brendan Benson, let alone the Greenhornes, whose rhythm section provide backup to Benson and White Stripes man, Jack White. However, while to most it's not a supergroup, in practice it most certainly is.

Pooling their considerable talents, the Raconteurs combine to form something that's not really like anything the four men have done before. I have long said that were Jack White to recruit a proper backing band (or even a decent drummer) I would willingly buy the record that would result, and Broken Boy Soldiers is that record; what an album it is.

While by no means perfect - `Blue Veins' is terrible, and unfortunately closes the album - Broken Boy Soldiers is a brilliant written, short, sharp pop record. At 33 minutes and ten songs long, with only one duff one, it wastes no time. None of the songs last longer than four minutes, but each of them crams a ton of invention and brilliance into that time slot. Brendan Benson, with his clear, Beatle-like voice melds wonderfully with Jack White's faintly unhinged, Robert Plant-meets-a-mental-patient vocals.

This album is clearly a democracy between Benson as the pop classicist and White as the experimentalist. Benson's songs are the lush, charming numbers like the perky `Yellow Sun'; White's are the often sinister boogies like `Level.' When they combine their talents is where things really take off, with the albums handful of truly great songs.

`Steady, As She Goes' is the opener, first single, and first song the two wrote together. No wonder they decided to take it on from here, with its storming chorus explosion, call-and-response vocals and malevolent organ backing. `Hands' is one of the contenders for best song here and best song of 2006; its faintly psychedelic, spiralling first section even has a brief guitar fill that sounds like vintage George Harrison guitar, circa-1966. `Store Bought Bones' fits a head-wrecking psych-prog epic into just over two minutes, with a recurring keyboard motif and a euphoric, squealing guitar solo from White. Best of all, `Intimate Secretary' blends feedback, synths and a stabbing acoustic guitar riff to some faintly hilarious lyrics (`I had an uncle but he got shot/I've got a red Japanese tea pot'), an amalgamation of this album's best points and the beauty of the White/Benson/Greenhornes combination.

Coupled with - it must be said - a competent, nay, brilliant rhythm section, White has finally broken his self-induced boundaries and made a vintage pop album. It could've come out thirty years ago; instead it's come out this year. Count yourself lucky, and add it to your collection.

A great rock album.
After listening to this album straight through twice, I can honestly say that it lives up to the expectations I had after listening to the single and bits and pieces on the radio. It's fantastic, ranging in texture from rough (Hands, Level) through stippled (Yellow Sun) to satin (Together) The Raconterus have definitely not fallen over on this release.

Superb.

Even my parents love it!
Wow, we all love the White Stripes and especially Jack White's infectious and ground breaking idea's with music, I am fortunate to have already listened several times to Broken Boy Soldiers. This album truly takes him on another level (those who thought that possible after elephant?) To me the collaboration with already established band members has given Jack an added incentive to push the envelope further. His harmonies with Brendan are wonderful, this isn't just a Jack White showcase though, the influences are throughout from each individual member. Blue Veins being an old fashioned blues basher, Hands a decent late Beatles homeage and Yellow Sun wouldn't go amiss on any classic rock summer compilation. Each song is in a different style which only adds to the exquisite composition of the whole. This is THE album of 2006 and will be appreciated in time as one of the greatest ever recorded pieces of loveliness.