Review
Genre and Mood
The White Stripes put Black Math second on Elephant, straight after the album’s famous opener. It is garage rock at its most punk, with the blues still audible underneath: raw, intense and rebellious, a three-minute sprint in which nothing is smoothed over.
Song Summary
The song grew out of Jack White’s quarrel with his high-school maths teacher, and its premise is bigger than one classroom: that students are taught what to think rather than how to think. Jack first wrote it while he was a member of the Detroit band The Go, then brought it to the duo. On Elephant it runs just over three minutes, built from the two things the band always had, a guitar and a drum kit, and from Jack’s wailing voice.
Musical Breakdown
No source maps Black Math bar by bar, so this walk-through stays with what the critics and the band’s history describe.
Intro
The song starts on the riff. For the recording Jack played a Japanese Crestwood Astral II guitar fitted with a cut-off switch, which lets a player chop the signal on and off by hand.
Verses
Louder heard the song’s trademark in Jack’s riffing and wailing coupled with Meg White’s loose but relentless pounding drums.
Guitar Solo
Guitar.com called the song unadulterated, greasy sleaze and found its solo satisfyingly, wildly out of control.
Concepts in Focus
A riff is a short figure repeated until it becomes the song’s spine. The White Stripes had no bass player, so Jack’s riffs had to carry the low end, the rhythm and the hook at once; in Black Math the riff is also the engine of the tempo. Compare the slower, stalking riff of The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army, which opens the same album.
Elephant is a study in lo-fi as a deliberate aesthetic rather than a necessity. It was recorded with engineer Liam Watson at Toe Rag Studios in London in April and May 2002 on antiquated analogue equipment, including an eight-track tape machine, and no computer was used in writing, recording or production. The roughness you hear is a choice.
The music video came two decades late. For Elephant’s 20th anniversary in 2023 the band released an official video for Black Math, directed by Wartella, alongside a deluxe edition with remastered audio.
Artistic Context
The White Stripes were Jack and Meg White from Detroit. Elephant, their fourth album, was produced by Jack and released on 1 April 2003 by V2 in the United States and XL Recordings in Britain, continuing the back-to-basics approach of White Blood Cells. The credits give the lyrics to Jack and the music to both members.
Impact and Reception
Elephant was met with universal acclaim, a Metacritic score of 92, and Rolling Stone called it a work of pulverizing perfection. Black Math became a frequent concert opener; Jack felt it was hard to pull out in the middle of a set. Put it on loud, right after Seven Nation Army, the way the album intends.
