Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016

Acoustic Recordings spools along as if conceived as a work unto itself, not a crazy quilt of quiet odds ‘n’ sods.

Acoustic Recordings stockpiles a great American songbook that can endure even after we’re all forced to live off the grid.

What Acoustic Recordings best illustrates, though, is a consistency to White's songwriting that has endured through his myriad projects, even as his music has swung unpredictably between playfulness and intensity. [Oct 2016, p.48]

There’s little that disappoints here, even after Jack’s parting of ways with Meg to plot a solo course.

The compilation does make a convincing case for Jack White the versatile pop songwriter, however. Blessed with a sweet melodic touch, he turns his hand to everything from children’s songs (We’re Going to Be Friends) to powerpop (recorded differently, You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket could have graced a Big Star album); from epic balladry (Forever for Her Is Over for Me) to comedy.

Despite the diversity of themes and styles, the sense of a confident single voice comes through much louder and clearer than before in this new context.

A series of vulnerable, tender numbers that highlight how talented a songwriter White truly is--a trait that gets lost amidst the critical commotion surrounding his increasingly eccentric creative pursuits.

What impresses is the consistency. Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016 not only is a strong set of songs but it makes it plain that White has been mining the same territory, finding something new within it for nearly two decades.

White's definition of acoustic includes pedal steel and pretty much everything except punk guitar. You may miss the electric buzz blowing the melancholy away, but this foot stomping music does the job.

For now, as a clue, we have this album of nuances, a revue of a career, where the delight is consistently in the details, some of them random, and others masterfully intentional.

An album like this should reveal something about the artist, if only to highlight how an unplugged Jack White has differed over the years from his garage-rock side. Acoustic Recordings doesn’t really do that. It’s more like fragments out of context, squarely framed.