Track Listing

1. You're Pretty Good Looking
2. Hello Operator
3. Little Bird
4. Apple Blossom
5. I'm Bound To Pack It Up
6. Death Letter
7. Sister, Do You Know My Name?
8. Truth Doesn't Make A Noise
9. Boy's Best Friend, A
10. Let's Build A Home
11. Jumble, Jumble
12. Why Can't You Be Nicer To Me?
13. Your Southern Can Is Mine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1961 in Music
• Released on: 2002-02-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Don't be mistaken by the modernist cover and obscure title, The White Stripes' De Stijl certainly doesn't deal in the abstract. Primarily interested in the raw, passionate sounds of the blues (cited influences include legendary guitarists Robert Johnson and Charley Patton) as well as blues influenced 70s rock, Meg and Jack White create their own punked-up rhythm and blues that is direct and incredibly soulful. Singing of childhood memories, injustices and lost loves with tracks such as "Sister, Do You Know My Name?" and "Jumble, Jumble", they seem to inhabit an innocent world which fits oddly well with the type of fervent, shambolic music they make and, you suspect, could sound positively "twee" without it. From the disjointed thrashy, stop-start rant of "Hello Operator", the 60s beat pop of "Pretty Good Looking" and the Blind Willie McTell cover "Your Southern Can is Mine" De Stijl shows a band beginning to carve out a sound for themselves. Less heavy than the guitar crunching follow-up--White Blood Cells, De Stijl is a more diverse collection of songs, hinting that there is much more to the Detroit duo than first meets the eye. -Caroline Butler

Customer Reviews

......hey little apple blossom..
This is by far the best and most under-rated white stripes album. it is perfect, no other words for it. not a bad song on the whole album, no slip-ups, nothing, and a brilliant album cover to enjoy looking through. the duo at their best.

Too uncomplicated to not be beautiful...
'Even if the goal of ahieving beauty from simplicity is aesthetically less exciting, it may force the mind to acknowledge the simple components which make the complicated beautiful.'
That's written in the little cover booklet thing.
This album is simple, and beautiful.

The opening track, 'You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)', is short, simple, catchy, and more or less instantly cheers me up when I'm feeling a bit crap.

'Hello Operator' has a classic choppy guitar riff thing going on and interesting lyrics (Sung brilliantly). Every now and then the music cuts out, and all you hear is some overly-simplistic percussion from Meg - then, at the perfect moment, the guitar comes back in. It's one of those bits that just strikes me as being brilliant whenever I hear it.

'I'm Bound To Pack It Up' - Beautiful. I won't try to describe it any other way, for fear of failing and not expressing how excellent this tune is.

'Sister, Do You Know My Name?' does a great job capturing the feel of the situation being described.

'Jumble, Jumble' is simple, raw, and brilliant. I'm aware I'm not great at describing these in depth; That's 'cause it's hard to convey the sound in words here...

Anyway, I can't say something about all of them, because on most of them I'd be struggling for words again and would have to settle for just 'Brilliant', 'Excellent', 'Fantastic' and so on.
If you're new to the White Stripes, I dunno if this'd be a good first album to get - I'd go with Elephant, I think. But if you've heard some stuff by them and you know you're into them, this album won't dissapoint.
There's a kind of subtle beauty to it.
Five stars.

De best White Stripes album
It´s extremely difficult to pick between The White Stripe´s releases and although they all follow more or less the same formula they have this uncanny knack of being slightly different every time and equally brilliant. For me, this just about pips all the rest.
De Stijjl was the first record of there´s I bought mainly because of the album cover, there aren´t many groups that are influenced by design movements.
From the infectious,"You´re pretty good looking(for a girl,)" to the banging neurotic sounding,"Hello Operator," it´s business as usual as Jack and Meg give rock music a well deserved kick up the backside. Jack´s guitar playing really sets the pulse racing at times. The cruching rangy riff on,"litlle bird," is my favourite moment on the record. He´s a really indisriminate guitarist, constantly going off at different angles, it somehow makes the guitar fit into the song.
"I´m bound to pack it up," shows the amazing inventiveness of this band, it sounds folk influenced.
"Sister do you know my name?" is a pretty conventional track for The White Stripes, but things swing off at a tangent again with,"A boys best friend," and the wonderful implusive,"Jumble Jumble."
Their songwriting is constantly entertaining and I must admit that I rarely listen to the words of their songs, I´m too busy being enthralled by the music.