It’s safe to say I’d fallen out of love with Jack White. I had his band The Dead Weather’s debut album Horehound at #14 in 2009 (the Bacon Top 31’s inaugural year). Since then, there have been two additional Dead Weather albums, a Raconteurs album, and five Jack White solo albums, none of which landed in my Top 31 favorites of the years they were released. White did appear once as part of another album: he played on Beyoncé’s Lemonade in 2016.

And so it is with immense pleasure and a small amount of surprise that I can say that Jack White released a wonderful new solo record in 2024. Playfully titled No Name, there’s a very good reason why this album has drawn my and others’ attention more than White’s more recent releases: it sounds like old Jack White, the one we all fell in love with in the early 00’s. His original band, The White Stripes, was groundbreaking – the husband and wife performed stripped down garage / blues rock, almost exclusively with Jack playing electric guitar and Meg playing drums. And over 8 years (1999 - 2007), the duo produced six stellar albums.

Meg retired from music in 2011, Jack continued on, but the White Stripes were no longer. The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, and White’s solo albums since then have all been outside of the pure garage rack ethos. Bigger groups, more full production, seemingly more “crafted” for a wider audience but somehow much less interesting. No Name is not that. Minimal production, fuzzed out guitar, White’s screeching voice – this is a true return to form, and it’s glorious.

Like the White Stripes albums, No Name is a family affair, with White’s current wife, Olivia Jean, from the band the Black Belles, playing bass and drums on three tracks and White’s daughter Scarlett playing bass on two other tracks. White produced the album himself, with a cadre of additional people filling in at poignant spots, playing almost entirely guitar, bass, and drums. Keyboards make an appearance on four of the 13 tracks, and there you have the full album instrumentation.

White has only released one video in promotion of the album, for the song “That’s How I’m Feeling” (featured above). The song features one of the many scathingly loud and raucous choruses on the album. The video is nothing like the Stripes’ groundbreaking video work with Michel Gondry – it’s just simple live shots of Jack White performances. It’ll do.

I’ll be seeing Jack White later this year, and the strength of this album has got me very excited at the prospect of hearing new and old songs from him. For now, this new album will tide me over. Here’s to hoping White produces more of the same in the future!

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Lemonade by Beyoncé

There’s a first time for everything. Yes, here at #6 is Beyoncé. If you’re questioning why, then that must be because you haven’t listened to Lemonade yet. This is a force of an album. Rolling Stone gave it ★★★★★, a rating the (somehow still relevant after all these years) magazine has given to only 22 other albums in its history.

I think you could have guessed that I didn’t used to be a Beyoncé fan. I didn’t actively dislike her or her music, I just didn’t pay attention to her and her music. Of course I’d heard some of her songs, but before Lemonade I would have been hard pressed to name even one. I had forgotten that she was the former “centerpiece” of 90s phenomenon Destiny’s Child. What drew me to her? It was the hour-long video that went along with the release of the album. I missed it when it aired on HBO on April 23. But there was enough of a rumbling out there caused by its release that I sought out the video and watched it a few weeks later.

And that was all it took. One sitting, an hour long, running through all 12 of the albums tracks, with a stellar video performance for each one. From that point on, “Hold Up” — the 2nd song on the album — was stuck on repeat in my head. I bought the CD / DVD version of the album (yes, the CD, because it wasn’t available in vinyl or on the streaming services I subscribe to at the time), and then listened to it on repeat for a few weeks straight.

Every single song on this record kicks ass. It has guest appearances by a ton of people, like Jack White, The Weekend, James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, Diplo, and Ezra Koenig. It’s decidedly sparse in places, and pops in all the right ways. The lyrics are often pissed off and vulgar. In all ways, this album should be considered a stretch by Beyoncé, pushing her out of her pop music safe zone. Instead, it’s her best work yet, and it kills. You have not lived until you’ve heard this album. Get on that.

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7. Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest
8. Goodness by The Hotelier
9. The Mountain Will Fall by DJ Shadow
10. Junun by Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express
11. The Hope Six Demolition Project by PJ Harvey
12. Amen & Goodbye by Yeasayer
13. Sea of Noise by St. Paul & The Broken Bones
14. You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
15. Painting Of A Panic Attack by Frightened Rabbit
16. Why Are You OK by Band Of Horses
17. Not To Disappear by Daughter
18. Sunlit Youth by Local Natives
19. I Had a Dream That You Were Mine by Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam
20. ★ by David Bowie
21. Farewell, Starlite! by Francis and the Lights
22. This Unruly Mess I’ve Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
23. LNZNDRF by LNZNDRF
24. Puberty 2 by Mitski
25. Light Upon the Lake by Whitney
26. A Corpse Wired for Sound by Merchandise
27. Away by Okkervil River
28. case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs
29. Love Letter for Fire by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop
30. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future by Underworld
31. Preoccupations by Preoccupations

#19 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Jack White

#6 on the 2016 Bacon Top 31