This is an updated, English version of the article that I orginally wrote for VPRO 3voor12 in 2014: https://3voor12.vpro.nl/artikelen/overzicht/2014/juni/Jack-White.html

I published this again as an addition of the review I wrote about Jack White’s show in Utrecht in 2025, that was dedicated to Gerrit Rietveld: https://willemvanzeeland.com/2025/03/23/jack-white-in-utrecht-a-captivating-tribute-to-gerrit-rietveld-review/

Jack White is coming to the Netherlands once again. On Tuesday, July 1 2014, he will perform at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam. Over the past few years, he has undergone a remarkable transformation: from the modernism of The White Stripes’ De Stijl album to the baroque style of his solo album Lazaretto.

The De Stijl album by The White Stripes was a pleasant surprise in the year 2000. With a Dutch-language title, of course referencing the 1920s art movement De Stijl. “Dedicated to Gerrit Rietveld and Blind Willie McTell,” we read in the CD booklet.

Gerrit Rietveld: Modernist, Designer, and Architect from Utrecht. Famous for his Rietveld Chair and the Rietveld-Schroder House. A man who could achieve maximum beauty with minimal means. A famous exponent of De Stijl, but significantly less rigid in his approach than Piet Mondriaan. A man for whom every new project was primarily an experiment, not a repetitive exercise. Above all, a modernist who, unlike many of his contemporaries, was never tempted by megalomania—a modernist who always worked with the human scale as his starting point.

The Rietveld-Schröder House in Utrecht:

In the CD booklet of De Stijl, we find this manifesto from The White Stripes:

“When ideas become too complicated, and the pursuit of perfection is misconstrued as a need for excess. When there is so much involved that individual components cannot be discerned. When it is hard to break the rules of excess, then new rules need to be established. It descends back to the beginning where the construction of things visual or aural is too uncomplicated to not be beautiful. But this is done in the knowledge that we can only become simple to a point and then there is nowhere else to go. There are definite natural things which cannot be broken down into lesser components. Even if the goal of achieving beauty from simplicity is aesthetically less exciting it may force the mind to acknowledge the simple components that make the complicated beautiful.”

The band seems to adhere strictly to this manifesto. Stylish design, using only the colors red, black, and white. Simple songs, propelled by the simple four-four time of drummer Meg White. But beneath that apparent simplicity, it’s actually very versatile: from country to punk, with guitar and drums as the foundation, but you also hear piano, harmonica, and violin.

On the 2001 album White Blood Cells, another modernist manifesto by The White Stripes seems to be present. The song Little Room:

Well, you’re in your little room,
and you’re working on something good,
but if it’s really good,
you’re gonna need a bigger room.

And when you’re in the bigger room,
you might not know what to do.
You might have to think of how you got started
sitting in your little room.

You are only truly a great modernist if you manage to create a modernist icon. A work of art that combines the greatest simplicity with the greatest beauty. The Rietveld Chair is such an icon.

And what about Malevich’s Black Square:

Or Brancusi’s Egg:

Jack White will also succeed in creating such a modernist icon. It’s the intro to Seven Nation Army. A simple guitar riff that sounds like a bassline: Deudeudeudeudeu, deuwdeuw. It’s almost nothing, but it’s a masterpiece. Entire football stadiums now sing it, and most people won’t even know it’s by Jack White. I strongly believe that this tradition began at the Belgian festival Rock Werchter, when 2 Many DJ’s kept repeating this intro, and the tens of thousands of people in the crowd couldn’t stop singing along (correct me if I’m wrong).

Jack White has been showcasing his musicality and consistency with The White Stripes on Dutch stages in recent years: at Paradiso in Amsterdam in 2003 and at Lowlands, closing the festival in the Alpha-tent in 2004. After this concert, I get the chance to meet Jack and Meg White in the dressing room at Lowlands. I am there with Ida van Zijl, the great Rietveld expert from the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, and probably the greatest Rietveld expert in the world. We brought a gift: the catalog of the complete works of Gerrit Rietveld, the beautiful book that Ida van Zijl created, containing the complete works of Gerrit Rietveld. Jack eagerly and enthusiastically flips through the catalog and tells us that his enthusiasm for Gerrit Rietveld mainly comes from his background as a cabinetmaker. Jack enjoys building and tinkering with furniture in the Rietveld style at home and even reveals that he is currently working on actual garden furniture in this style.

The catalog of the complete works of Gerrit Rietveld:

In hindsight, it seems as though we were saying goodbye to the modernist Jack White there. Because Jack wanted something different from then on. This became clear to me for the first time during a performance by The White Stripes at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam in 2005, on the occasion of yet another new album: Get Behind Me Satan. Meg White’s minimalist drum parts were as consistent as always, but Jack White seemed to be aiming for a break in style. Surrounded by a multitude of musical instruments and effect equipment, he seemed almost to be attempting to imitate a symphony orchestra on his own. What happened to beauty from simplicity? For the first time, the thought crosses my mind that it could all end very quickly for The White Stripes. The manifesto seems to have become a rigid straightjacket that is hindering Jack White’s progress. He has reached a point in his career where he can do whatever he wants. So if he wants to be a symphony orchestra on his own, why the hell not?

It would still take some time. In 2007, the difficult and largely forgotten White Stripes album Icky Thump is released. And then Jack branches out: with the bands The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, a Morricone-inspired venture with Danger Mouse, and a solo career that begins with the album Blunderbuss in 2012. On this widely praised album, he showcases his versatility, which is further emphasized by a tour with both a male band and a female band. Every night is a surprise with what he brings to the stage. The concerts become more theatrical, and he seems to have become the Johnny Depp of pop music. And it suits him, he gets away with it very well.

And now there is Lazaretto, the new album by Jack White. Look at that cover— the modernist seems to have definitively converted to baroque. He poses in a shiny blue suit, surrounded by sculpted angels. We hear pedal steel, Hammond organ, harp, and mandolin. “I got three women, red, blonde, and brunette,” so this record begins. Lazaretto seems like an ode to excess. And we haven’t even mentioned the vinyl version yet. Full of tricks, jokes, extras, and inventive details. Side 1 is even played in reverse: from the inside out.

For Gerrit Rietveld, every new project was an experiment. A search for form and material. And for how you relate to your surroundings. He almost never repeated himself. Except at the end of his life, when he was finally famous and wealthy people commissioned him to build a villa for them. It had to be “a typical Rietveld” and not some kind of experiment. But experimenting was what he loved to do, just look at this Beeldenpaviljoen he created for the Sonsbeek park in Arnhem (it has since been moved to the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterloo).

The Sonsbeek Pavilion by Gerrit Rietveld:

In that respect, Jack White has indeed stayed true to Gerrit Rietveld. Not endlessly repeating the same minimalist drums, not always using red, white, and black. Every new song is an experiment in form and material. A principle that was also embraced by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Only the greatest can keep this up.

On Tuesday, July 1, Jack White will perform at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam. Will he sweep us away with his baroque style and megalomania? Or will we long for him to return to his Little Room?