Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

by Chuck Klosterman

“People in Detroit know their records.” This is certainly true for the Stripes, who pepper shows with Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” Meg’s rendition of Loretta Lynn’s “Rated X,” and the menacing, tommy-gun riff of Link Wray’s “Jack the Ripper.” Jack explains it this way: “We’ve never covered a song simply because it would be cool or because we’d seem really obscure for doing so. Certain circles of musicians will all get involved with the same record at the same time, and suddenly it will be cool to like the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society for a month. But why didn’t people feel that way three years ago? I’ve always hated the whole idea of record collectors who are obsessed with how obscure something is. Usually when somebody brings up something obscure, I assume it’s not very good, because—if it was—I would have heard it already. Record collectors are collecting. They’re not really listening to music.”