In Retrospect: "The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers"

Broken Boy Soldiers is the debut album by American rock band The Raconteurs (consisting of Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler), which was released on May 15/16 May, 2006.

Background

The band is based in Nashville, Tennessee and started in 2005. According to the band's internet site, the band was created when Benson and White started writting new songs, where one of them was their first single »Steady, As She Goes«. The duo decided to create a new band and recruit bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler after writting a couple of songs.    

The band first played and started writting material in the second half of 2005, when all the members had time off from their main projects (White – The White Stripes, Benson - Solo, The Greenhornes, Lawrence - The Greenhornes and later The Dead Weather, Keeler - The Greenhornes). The band was and still is considered by the public as a supergroup, but it is not by the band itself, because the band stated they are old friends back from the days where neither member had any commercial success.  

The Songs

All of the songs on the album were written by Jack White and Brendan Benson. As mentioned the song »Steady, As She Goes« was the first song that the duo had worked on, which was then followed by the song Broken Boy Soldier, hence the album's title. 

White stated later that the song Store Bought Bones was an outtake from his then-new The White Stripes album - Get Behind Me Satan (released in 2005). Benson also said that the two songs Call it a Day and Together, were both initially written for his solo album, but thought it suited the band more than for his solo material. 

Release

The record was recorded in late 2005 at Le Grande Studios in Detroit, Michigan, and was produced by Jack White and Brendan Benson. Upon release the record received high praise from major music critics and magazines such as: Rolling Stone, People Magazine, Pop Matters and All Music. It ended up on several best records lists and was nominated for a grammy at the 49th Grammy Awards for the Best Rock Album.

In Retrospect...

I stumbled upon the record when I listened to all of the material from The White Stripes (which to this day is my favourite band), and wanted more music from Jack White. I looked up his biography and noticed that he is in a band called The Raconteurs. I checked out their music on Youtube, and upon hearing Steady as She Goes and Hands, I instantly fell in love with the band's music. The album has an awesome old school garage rock sound delivers quality music as any White Stripes record. I highly recommend this album to any garage/alternative rock listener out there.