The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers

This album was great from top to bottom, and it’s best to play it that way. But the songs hold up even outside the context of the album. (I put a few on a recent mix CD I made.) Yes, Jack White is in there somewhere, but it’s pretty easy to forget all about him. There’s very little blues-influenced material and the songs he sings are mercifully free of the crazy-eyed vocal style he sometimes puts on White Stripes songs. Some favorites might be “Levels” and “Steady As She Goes”, which deserved to be the single. The thing is, several songs here could/should be singles if anyone gave a damn. Sigh.